In Your Eyes
by Kb.Ellen
Summary: Sequel to 'Just one Look! Kurt and Blaine embark on their second semester of Junior year at Dalton Academy after a rather eventful Winter Break. Starts right where J1L left off. Hold on to your hats everybody; second semester may be even crazier than the first! Rated M just to be on the safe side. Klaine.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I'm baaack! (You didn't seriously think I was going to pass up that opportunity, did you?) And you know what that means, right!? SEQUEL TIME! We're going to pick up right where the epilogue left off, so I'll shut up and let you get started. I hope you enjoy the first chapter of 'Just one Look's sequel, 'In Your Eyes'! **

**Disclaimer: I (still) do not own Glee.**

**Chapter 1**

…but crazy…well, that was a completely different matter.

Because as cheesy as it was, Kurt was crazy in love, and it didn't matter what their parents or friends thought, because this was his life, _their _life, their _marriage_.

"Yes." He breathed, uncertain that his voice was strong enough to muster up much more. The words, _their marriage, _reverberated around his skull with the oddest sensation. He hadn't really tried those words out before, and now not only were they placed side by side, but they had validity. They were relevant and real.

Blaine's eyes, which had remained wide and unmoving, grew to an impossibly larger size. His arms tightened around Kurt's waist in disbelief; like if he wasn't careful, Kurt would get up and run away.

"Really?" he couldn't help himself from asking, tears filling up his enlarged hazel eyes. Either they were gathering with the assumption that Kurt would say no and retract his acceptance of the proposal or they were gathering with the joy that his heart was trying to fight back as he waited with bated breath to hear Kurt's reply.

"Yes," he said, with more conviction, his eyes alight with so much love and wonder it was causing the blue of his eyes to actively shift between green and gray and blue right before Blaine's eyes, "But," he continued quickly, holding his hand up in front of him, as if cautioning Blaine against the flow of words that were about to pour out of his mouth, "we're going to wait until at least _after _graduation, which will give me plenty of time to pull together the most incredible wedding that ever existed and ever _will _exist, preferably in New York, because not only is it legal there, but we both hope to live their one day, so it just makes sense. Plus, it's fabulous there, so it's really a no-brainer."

Blaine's face had split into the widest smile that could possibly fit onto his face, as he nodded eagerly with every word falling from Kurt's lips. He squirmed desperately in his spot, desperately trying to hold himself back as Kurt continued.

"And I get to have approval over your suit," Kurt added, eyes on Blaine.

He just nodded enthusiastically and continued squirming in his spot, lying next to Kurt.

"And you are to swear that you won't shove cake in my face when you feed it to me,"

More nodding, face splitting grinning and jittery twitching.

"And any Katy Perry songs have to be run by me before they are allowed to be used in the reception. I do _not _want 'Peacock' blasting out loud and proud for all of our family and friends to hear."

Blaine gave a whiplash inducing nod of agreement as the tears of pure joy leaked out of his eyes finally, and his shining hazel orbs continued to stare back at Kurt with such excitement, it nearly broke his heart with happiness, even though he wasn't sure that made sense.

"Then, yes, I will marry you," Kurt breathed, his own tears beginning to fall at the sight of Blaine's. His entire demeanor softened to look simply angelic. "God, yes, yes, I will marry you Blaine, yes,"

Blaine's self-control completely dissolved at the impassioned reply from his boyfri-fiance.

…Fiancé…

Blaine launched himself at Kurt, closing the small distance between their bodies with a desperate need to be as close as the laws of physics allowed. Blaine landed on top only to keep them rolling until Kurt was, and then another full roll brought Blaine back to resting on top.

"Oh God, I love you so much, baby," he nearly whined as their tears mixed in their proximity, and he feverishly kissed Kurt's full, waiting lips, "so, so, much."

Kurt responded with 'I love you' over and over again, making sure that the words filled up Blaine's head and heart until it was very nearly fact.

A small shift of weight sent them spilling off of the bed to land in a heap of tangle limbs and surprised giggles.

Kurt, who had landed on top, burst out laughing and nuzzled his face into Blaine's neck, while the shorter Warbler groaned a little from the hard reality of gravity+floor=pain.

"Thank God, you landed on top," he said after regaining his breath and wrapping his arms around the slender shaking waist of his giggling fiancé, "you weigh about as much as a sack of feathers. If I had landed on top, I fear I would have broken my fiancé."

At his last word, Kurt instantly stopped laughing and pulled his face out of its hiding place. It was the first time either of them had said the word out loud. He sat up slightly, so he was straddling Blaine's hips and felt the word sink down through his brain, down his brain stem, throughout his body until striking his heart with an astounding force.

He bent down to sink his teeth into the sensitive flesh of Blaine's lower lip, that trembled slightly at the tingling sensation that shot through his body at Kurt's slow, steady ministrations.

Moving his teeth lower, to nip at Blaine's neck, he nearly purred, "say it again, say it more," hoping that the sudden unexpected gravel in his voice wouldn't muddle his words too much.

The uncharacteristic gruff rumble in Kurt's voice sent chills over every surface of Blaine's body, but he was able to interpret Kurt's words even through his haze of lust and love. "You're my fiancé," he breathed, gripping Kurt's hips tightly in his large hands, anchoring the slender countertenor on top of him.

Kurt let out an involuntary growl of pleasure and pushed Blaine's shirt up to claw lightly at his stomach.

"Kurt Hummel is my fiancé," he managed to whisper before a groan was ripped from his throat. Kurt had rolled his hips down with that exact intent.

"I love my fiancé," Kurt murmured back against his lips and felt a similar shiver run through the both of them. He wasn't sure that this word would ever lose its luster, or that any word could ever affect him more.

"And I love my soon to be husband," Blaine whispered back, capturing Kurt's lips in a sweet, deep kiss.

The wanton whine that erupted from Kurt surprised both of them, because, oh _that _word, _husband_, that was…whoa, yeah, that was something else.

Needless to say, once Kurt's lips attached themselves to Blaine in a flash, they didn't release for quite a while. Nor did they ever make it off of the floor that night.

*~Line Break~*

The large windows allowed the early morning sunlight to leak through the slats of the wooden blinds, slowly waking the slumbering boys still tangled on the floor.

"Mmm, morning," Blaine mumbled when he felt Kurt's breath shift, indicating consciousness.

Kurt simply purred in greeting and held Blaine tighter. They had managed to throw pants back on right before falling asleep, just in case Gran decided to barge in with breakfast in bed, but they had been far too tired to worry about shirts or relocating back onto the bed.

They simply laid there, reveling in the feel of one another's touch and the early morning simplicity before Kurt's stomach let out a growl like that of a leviathan lurking deep in a dark, dank dungeon.

"Food?" Blaine chuckled, giving him a squeeze around his delicate waist.

"Coffee," Kurt answered.

"And food," Blaine stated, giving Kurt 'the look'.

"Fine, but mostly coffee," Kurt groaned before lifting his body off of the floor and offering Blaine a hand up.

"Thanks, love," Blaine said, kissing him on the cheek, knowing that Kurt wasn't a fan of morning breath kisses.

It took Blaine a few minutes to convince Kurt that he didn't need to fix his hair before venturing beyond the room, and once they had both dawned shirts, they padded their way into the cool kitchen to find Gran cooking up the perfect storm of French toast, bacon, eggs, mixed fruit, biscuits, sausage links, pancakes and waffles.

"Oh, Kurt, doll, I didn't know what you liked, so I thought I'd just cover all my bases!" she smiled a beautiful smile that made her look entirely too young to be anyone's grandmother.

"Gran, this is…wow, you really didn't have to," Kurt cried, running over and scooping the pancake batter bowl out of her hands to give her a hand.

She pouted lightly, but Kurt just gave her a look that clearly communicated that he _wanted _to help.

Blaine smiled at how quickly they had learned to silently communicate and read one another's body language. _Just like a family_. That thought only broadened his smile as he poured a cup of coffee for himself and Kurt and handed it to his ever vigilant fiancé as he watched the pancakes carefully. He did leave his post though to give Blaine a quick peck of appreciation. But being distant wasn't really an option for Blaine right now; not after the events of the previous night. So he slid his arms around Kurt from behind and rested his chin on Kurt's surprisingly broad shoulders. For such a slender, delicate featured man, Kurt's shoulders had always been so broad, leading to some rather well defined, strong arms. Lost in his thoughts, Blaine had absentmindedly started massaging Kurt's sides and leaning his face into the crook of Kurt's neck, practically humming with satisfaction.

"Don't let him drool on the pancakes," Gran teased with a light glint in her eyes that caused Kurt to giggle in response and pat Blaine on the head.

"Hon," he smiled warmly, "you doing okay there?" Kurt teased.

"I'm doing just fine, thank you very much," Blaine responded, sounding playfully agitated and locking his arms tightly around Kurt's waist. "I'm going to marry the most stunning man in the world," Blaine whispered into Kurt's ear, "so yeah, I'm doing pretty good."

The taller boy's breath rushed out of his lungs with a whoosh as he fought the urge to twist around and attack Blaine's lips ferociously.

"Okay, enough whispering," Gran pouted, "I want in on the secret!"

Blaine flicked his gaze up to meet Kurt's eyes, which were surprisingly green today. They hadn't really discussed the idea of telling others about their recent change in relationship status, not that he was opposed to telling people. Hell, he would scream it from the roof tops if Kurt was okay with it. He wanted everyone to know that he was the lucky man who Kurt Hummel was going to wed. Kurt Hummel had said yes to _him_.

Kurt's eyes immediately lit up with excitement and he nodded very minutely but fervently to express his willingness.

Blaine's grin stretched impossibly wide as he released Kurt's waist to stand next to him and intertwine their hands.

"Gran," Blaine said quietly, trying to reign in his jittery nerves and simultaneous excitement, "take a seat."

Gran's eyes widened with real concern as she took a few seats back and sat herself down on one of the dining room table's chairs, eyes never leaving the couple. She rested her hands in her lap and waited patiently and excruciatingly curiously. Her eyes swept the pair up and down and back and forth as they relocated to some bar stools opposite of her, as if she could read the oncoming news on their bodies.

They sat in silence for a few tense seconds; no one was quite sure who was supposed to speak or how to start.

"Oh my God, you're pregnant, aren't you?" Gran said with pretend shock while staring directly at Blaine.

All the anxiety in Blaine's smile melted away at that, and was replaced by a fond smile directed at his surrogate mother.

"Um, no," Blaine chuckled, shaking his head with amusement, "but I sort of…" he paused momentarily, suddenly a little bit nervous. He knew that his grandma was not the judging type, but he and Kurt were so young, and hadn't been dating very long. What if she didn't approve or thought they were moving too fast? Her approval meant everything to him. I mean, sure, even if she didn't grant them her blessing, he would still marry Kurt, but there would always be that small hint of bitterness surrounding the event.

Steeling himself away, Blaine took a deep breath and shyly continued, "I sort of asked Kurt to marry me…"

He peaked up through his lashes to see a completely dumbstruck expression cast upon her frozen features.

"…and I said yes," Kurt spoke softly, trying to break the silence and let Blaine know that he wasn't alone in this.

The seconds ticked by incredibly slow; Gran remaining a statue of shock.

Finally, Gran exploded.

Her face erupted into the Grand Canyon of all smiles as she let out something that was cross between a fan girl squeal and a war call. Before they had a chance to react, Gran had launched herself out of her chair and attached herself to the two boys, arms stretched as wide as possible to accommodate both of their bodies at once.

Finally, she pulled away only to slip both of her arms firmly around Blaine's neck and practically hang their, causing the curly headed man to wrap his arms around her trim waist and hoist her up in his arms, laughing a gleeful laugh as she held his face in her hands.

"Oh Blaine, I'm so, so happy for you! My beautiful baby boy…" she trailed off as tears began falling down her face. Softly cradling his face, she brought it down so she could plant a kiss on his forehead.

Taking a deep breath, she released her grandson to envelope her new grandson in a similar embrace. Squeezing him tight she jumped up and down and let out another squeal that caused Gramps to summon to the door way with question marks in his eyes.

"I'm so happy it's you, doll," Gran cooed into his chest, since he was that much taller than her, "so happy it's you." She pulled back a little so she could look Kurt in the eyes and the intensity found in her gaze was enough to make his breath catch in his throat. "I love you, okay? You're family now, and I couldn't be more thrilled about that." Tears slipped down Kurt's laughing face as he buried his face into the hair on top of Gran's head. She was just too much like his mother, and he was loving it.

"Um…so…what's going on?" Gramps asked hesitantly from the doorway where he was watching the declarations of love and the falling of joyful tears and laughter.

"Oh, Richard!" Gran clapped happily, running over to him to pull him over to the boys by the hand. "Good, you're here! I need someone to pick Blaine up and spin him around! He's too heavy for me!"

Gramps just quirked an eyebrow at his wife and then looked at the identical amused and blissful expressions on the boys' faces.

"I asked Kurt to marry me last night and he said yes," Blaine stated happily, a fresh batch of tears soaking his eyes as Kurt reached forward to squeeze his hand.

Gramps too seemed to take a moment to process the information before his toothy grin overtook his kind face.

Without a second's hesitation, he scooped Blaine up in his arms and lifted him like he was nothing but a child again. Blaine laughed like mad, feeling happier than he ever thought would have been possible.

"I am so proud of you son," Gramps said to him as he let his feet connect with the floor again, "you have no idea what an incredible man you've become." With his hands on Blaine's shoulders, he leveled him a very serious look to make sure his next words were understood. "You deserve all the happiness the world can give you, Blaine. You deserve it."

Blaine didn't even try to hold the tears in as he fell into his grandfather's chest and held him tightly.

When the men finally released, Gramps turned his attention to Kurt, looking mighty proud. He opened his arms as an invitation, giving Kurt the option. Kurt didn't even have to think as he folded his arms around Gramps and felt the embrace immediately returned.

"Thank you for being such a good man," Gramps told him when they released one another, "You're the best thing to happen to this family in a while."

Kurt couldn't believe how much crying had already happened so early in the morning, but he wasn't embarrassed when yet another round of tears pooled in his eyes at Gramps high praise.

"Thank _you_," Kurt said fervently, hoping that the entire meaning of his words were understood.

Gramps just nodded with a kind, knowing smile and patted Kurt on the shoulder. "Now," he stated, "for the next order of business: the pancakes are on fire."

The other three heads whipped around to see the unattended pancakes smoking dangerously.

After a quick removal of the scorched food and dousing the air with Febreeze, they sat down to enjoy their already insanely large breakfast sans pancakes.

**A/N: I was feeling rather fluffy today, if you couldn't tell. I hope you like chapter uno! Let me know! As always, I love to hear from you so leave a review or PM me anytime! **


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Hey everybody! It feels like it's been a really long time since I last updated this story, and for that, I'm super sorry! End of semester sucks! Oh, and before I forget, I have a little side note. Someone pointed out to me that in J1L I kept referring to Nick as the blonde, and Jeff as the brunette, when in fact it's the other way around. So, instead of scouring the chapters of J1L and correcting them all, from here on out, I'm policing myself to make sure I get it straight: Nick=brunette, Jeff=blonde! Good? Good! Now, as you may have guessed, this is relevant because, I'M BRINGING THE BOYS BACK! EXCITEMENT! I hope you enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Glee.**

**Chapter 2**

"Now, don't you boys go off and forget about little ol'Gran," she teased while absentmindedly fixing Blaine's already straight bowtie.

"I don't think we could if we tried," Kurt told her with a gentle smile. The elderly woman's face reflected the gentle smile as she gently grasped Kurt's hands.

"Now you take care of Blaine for us, okay?" Gramps warmly asked , patting Kurt kindly on the shoulder.

"Oh, absolutely," Kurt smiled as he looped one arm around Blaine's neck and brought his other hand to Blaine's curly hair to give him a noogie.

"Hey, hey," Blaine squirmed away, "I would get murdered if I did something like that to you!"

"True, but _you _wouldn't kill me; you looooovvveee me!" Kurt teased childishly with a wide grin.

"Oh, yeah?" Blaine quirked an eyebrow with curiosity. Kurt just hummed his affirmation, a fond smile placed on his lips that mirrored Blaine's. Then, next thing he knew, Blaine had ducked down, lightning fast, and thrown Kurt over his shoulder, fireman style.

"We should do dinner sometime soon!" Blaine called as he began making his way towards the car amidst Kurt's struggles and Gran's giggles.

"You can count on it!" Gramps assured him as he waved largely to the boys.

"Love you!" Blaine called, only to be answered with Love you's from each grandparent.

When they finally reached the car, Blaine lowered Kurt back onto his feet and stood facing him with a ridiculously large grin on his face that screamed _I WIN!_

"Are you done?" Kurt asked, feigning annoyance. When Blaine nodded a large, over exaggerated affirmation, the taller boy just pivoted on his heels, opened his car door and, once seated inside, slammed it in Blaine's face.

Undeterred, Blaine boasted his most heartbreaking puppy dog eyes and finally, after only a few seconds, Kurt lowered his window, albeit, a tad begrudgingly.

"What?" he said haughtily, still pretending to be put out.

"I just wanted to say drive safe and I love you." Blaine leaned in through the driver's side door and kissed his cheek lovingly. Since each boy had driven their own cars here, they each had to drive back to Dalton separately.

Warming slightly under Blaine's kiss, Kurt smiled a small, yet affectionate smile and simply returned with, "I love you too. See you there?"

Blaine nodded, and they set out back to Dalton.

*~Line Break~*

The grounds of Dalton were like a wakening beast who had been slumbering for a long time; it stretched and groaned as it tried to get used to people being around again. Students had begun returning from their holiday vacations, some toting stories of lands far away, while some spoke of the infamous extended family and tried to one up each other with this year's wild antics. For example;

"Dude, how was I supposed to know that it would catch the house on fire?"

"And Aunt Alana's hand was stuck in the sink for like…oh…3 hours?"

"I've never seen so much cranberry sauce on the ceiling…like ever…"

And so on.

So, it was with great amusement that Kurt and Blaine decided to stroll around the campus after they had put their suitcases in their respective rooms. Hand in hand, they walked leisurely, occasionally nodding a silent greeting at familiar faces as they enjoyed the soft sounds of a winter's day. Kurt could feel the very light breeze tugging through his hair, threatening to send shivers down his spine if it wasn't for the sun, which warmed everything up, just not quite enough to melt the snow that had apparently blanketed Westerville in their absence.

However, in an all boys school, peace and quiet usually dies within the first few minutes of the morning. "Kurt!" an excited voice called.

Whipping his head toward the call, Kurt only registered a brunette blur of hair before he was tackled to the ground in a heap of excitement. Squirming a little in surprise, and squinting his eyes, he looked down to find Nick with his arms firmly locked around Kurt's torso and his face buried in Kurt's chest, giggling like a deranged maniac.

"Nick!" Jeff called, jogging up to the rest of the guys with a fond smile on his face as he pried a struggling Nick off of their friend. "Sorry, Kurt. As bad as Nick is at goodbyes, he's even worse with hellos."

"Worse?" Nick complained lightly, "I am excellent at making people feel welcome, thank you very much _Jeffery_." And in an extremely mature act, he completed his statement with poking his tongue out at his boyfriend, who only chuckled and kissed the top of his head.

"So I assume you two had a good vacation?" Blaine asked, claiming Kurt's hand once again, lacing their bare hands together to keep them warm.

Both Nick and Jeff's heads turned swiftly, noticing Blaine for the first time; he had been silent up until this point.

"Here we go…" Jeff muttered at the same time Nick screeched, "Blaine!" and practically lunged at the shorter man (who let out a rather surprised, yet totally manly, yelp), tackling him into the snow as well.

Jeff thought about retrieving his boyfriend, he really did, but in the end decided that he couldn't save them all, now could he? So he turned back to Kurt with a smile. "And how was your break? How's your family?"

"Good, they're good," Kurt said, dragging his eyes up from the wrestling boys in the snow drifts, "it was our first Christmas as a family and it was…nice. I love my dad and we've had some pretty wonderful Christmas days, but I sort of forgot what it was like to cook a big meal large enough for more than two people and have a feeling of…fullness? I don't know…" Kurt trailed off, trying to pluck the right words out of the ones floating around his skull. "It was never quiet, you know? I guess I didn't realize how much I missed the noise until now."

Jeff smiled and placed a hand on each of Kurt's shoulders, leveling a gaze into his eyes. "I'm really proud of you, Kurt," he said with a light smile on his gentle features, "not everyone would be so accepting of this sort of situation."

Blushing slightly at the praise, Kurt nodded his thanks only a tad awkwardly and replied, "Well, it's a lot easier when you have people as wonderful as Carole and Finn." Throwing a quick glance at his boyfriend, who was currently pinned beneath a guffawing Nick, Kurt decided to switch subjects. "So how did your break turn out?"

"Well, it started out slow-"

"-Cause Nick wasn't there." Kurt teased in a lovey dovey voice.

Rolling his eyes, Jeff scoffed, "Oh, shut it Hummel! You think I'm bad? Every other sentence between Blaine and you is 'I love you' or 'you're the wind beneath my wings' or something from an Enrique Iglasias song. And even when you're not talking, you're constantly having eye sex!"

"We do _not_!" Kurt said in an astounded voice, blushing like mad as he ducked his gaze.

"You are _not_ seriously denying this right now," Jeff laughed, shaking his head in utter disbelief.

Before Kurt could bite back, Wes clambered up, seemingly out of nowhere, still dragging a suitcase behind him and a duffle bag slung over his shoulder.

"Hey guys," Wes said rather calmly. It was shocking for two reasons. Firstly, after Nick's incredibly exuberant greetings, this was utterly subdued and anticlimactic. But the bigger oddity was the fact that this was Wes. _Wes. _The crazy kid who came up with an atrociously large sum of hair brained schemes daily. The kid who took everything to the next level. The kid who teased mercilessly but had the largest, goofiest, happiest heart on the planet. The kid who was pretty much nevera volume beneath earth shatteringly loud.

So with a curiously tentative smile, Kurt reached forward to wrap Wes up in his arms, "Hey, Wes. It's good to see you; I missed you."

Wes squeezed Kurt back soundly before releasing him and grabbing the handle of his rolling suitcase once again, glancing towards his dorm building with an exhausted gaze. "Missed you too," he mumbled a little distractedly, but still completely genuine.

"Well, I think I'm going to put my stuff away and unpack." Wes announced and, without waiting for a response, he turned towards the dorms and began the trek across the campus courtyard.

Kurt immediately looked over to Jeff with an expression of concern and worry. _What was wrong with Wes?_

Reading the blue-eyed Warbler's expression perfectly, Jeff just laughed a little, more to himself than anyone, and shook his head back and forth in a loose sway of amusement.

"Oh, don't worry about him, he's like this every year." Seeing that Kurt still didn't comprehend Wes' sorrow, Jeff began to elaborate. "He's just spend a little over 2 weeks away from David-"

"-and with his family-" Blaine piped up, finally done with the wrestling match, completely soaked with melted snow and disheveled beyond repair.

"-who is incredibly strict-" Nick offered, trying to straighten out his coat and scarf, which had nearly strangled him in battle.

"-which means no funny business," Jeff concluded, "which means hell for someone like Wes."

"Ah," Kurt nodded his head, finally understanding.

"Plus, you have to understand," Jeff continued as Nick took his hand and began absentmindedly playing with his fingers, "Wes and David are _best _friends. They know each other inside and out, because they're practically the same person. Wes has just spent about two weeks with people who don't understand him at all. So, every year, Wes comes back kind of sad and tired."

"Until David comes back," Nick replied happily; his lilting voice making it sound like he was reading a fairytale where there is always a happily ever after. "Then it's all sunshine and rainbows and questionably gay declarations of love; the whole shebang!"

Kurt giggled a little at Nick's enthusiasm, but his eyes remained wide with concern. "I didn't know that he had it so rough at home…"

"Oh, no, it's not like that, Kurt!" Jeff reassured in a rush. "Wes loves his family and they love him. It's just that perhaps two straight weeks of exposure is a little…much for our dear Wes; a little stifling."

Breathing a sigh of relief, Kurt's face finally relaxed into one of content, finally satisfied with their answers. He idly twined his finger's with Blaine's and began strolling in the direction of their dorms, finally realizing how cold he had gotten just standing in one spot talking. Jeff and Nick followed beside them, obviously ready to escape the cold too, if their rosy cheeks and chapped lips were any indication.

"So, when _is _David supposed to be getting back?" Blaine asked, shifting his eyes over unto the other couple.

"Not until tomorrow," Nick replied sadly, "at the earliest. Snow in Colorado was pretty nasty I guess."

They all nodded silently, taking the information in and continuing back to the dorms in a comfortable quiet.

*~Line Break~*

"All done unpacking?" Blaine asked from Kurt's doorway about 2 hours later.

Kurt just shot him a _You're kidding, right? Please tell me you're kidding, _look, his eyes then sweeping around the room to indicate the sheer amount of surface that was covered in clothing.

Blaine just chuckled at the predictable antics and stepped into the room, stepping up to Kurt, standing shoulder to shoulder with him and silently beginning to fold clothes.

Kurt didn't speak as he appreciated the simplicity in the domesticity of such a task. He did, however, allow his eyes to drift down to see Blaine's long fingers skillfully and carefully folding each piece of clothing, just how Kurt had shown him a few months ago.

_"No, Blaine, you can't fold a button down like you would a cotton t-shirt; it'll wrinkle. And not just a normal wrinkle. No. It'll be the grand mal, mother bitch of all wrinkles!"_

_ "It'll be the Grand Canyon?" Blaine suggested, only half teasing. Still, you could see in his hazel eyes that he really was trying to understand Kurt's description. If it was important to Kurt, then he would care._

_ Kurt smiled, quickly finding himself falling into those gorgeous greenish orbs. "Yes. It'll be the Grand Canyon of all wrinkles."_

_ Blaine just smiled one of those real, eye crinkling smirks and nodded happily, proud of himself for making an accurate analogy. _

_ As the over-gelled Warbler turned his attention back to the shirt in his hands, and slowly started his second attempt at a proper fold, Kurt discreetly shot glances from the corner of his eye to the beautiful man standing next to him, thinking, 'I wish I had a shot with him. I wish he felt the same way about me…'_

Kurt turned his body to face Blaine without a word, took the sweater from Blaine's hands and dropped it on the bed; for once, completely unconcerned if it wrinkled or creased the wrong way. He kept his eyes on Blaine the whole time and was finally rewarded with Blaine's confused eyes coming up from his suddenly empty hands to land on Kurt's blue eyes. In a completely fluid motion, that was neither hurried nor hesitant, Kurt placed a hand on either side of Blaine's face and bent down just a little to plant a kiss on Blaine's lips. It wasn't heated or animalistic like they had a tendency to escalate to. It was the embodiment of love. It was firm and certain and _real_.

Kurt had wanted Blaine since the moment he had met him, but he had never imagined that someone so kind and gorgeous and smart and talented; someone so _special _could even want to be _around _someone like him. But Blaine wanted to be his friend. And, as with most things Blaine does, he was really good at it. He was caring and supportive and quickly became Kurt's best friend. His extremely attractive best friend whom he had had a crush on since day one. And then Blaine defied all expectations by wanting more. To Kurt, the impossible happened: Blaine wanted him as more than friends. He wanted to be his boyfriend. And after some of the best months of his life, here Kurt was, standing with this wonderful man, his fiancé, folding laundry and thinking, _if I can do this for the rest of my life, I'll be okay. _

So Kurt held Blaine's face firmly between his palms and fingertips and silently told him that he loved him. Blaine's hands came up to grasp the taller boy's wrists securely and keep them in place. When they absolutely needed to breath, Kurt pulled back, but only just enough to break the seal of their lips. He leaned his forehead against his fiancé's as both sets of eyes remained blissfully closed, their breath ragged and shallow.

When Kurt opened his baby blues, he was met by a flustered looking Blaine who had an expression of 90% bliss, 10% amused confusion. Before the dark brunette mop top could speak, Kurt simply flexed his fingers, still located on Blaine's face, and said the only thing in his mind at that time.

"So glad I said yes."

The way Blaine's eyes positively shined caused Kurt's knees to grow slightly weak, but instead of fighting it, he just let his body sag a little bit against his lover; craving closeness and the feel of Blaine's warm breath on his cheek.

"I love you." Blaine replied. Sometimes simple is all you need.

And Kurt closed his eyes and repeated that sentiment back to Blaine, because, simply put, he loved Blaine too. And Kurt kept his hands on Blaine's face, and Blaine's hands remained wrapped around Kurt's wrists and their foreheads stayed against one another and they just swayed lightly, lost in the proximity; in their own little world.

*~Line Break~*

The lure of food had brought Jeff, Nick, Wes, Blaine and Kurt all out of their dorms and together. After devouring the cafeteria's incredibly delicious (especially for school ) food, they had ended up in the Warbler's rehearsal room, pulled in by not only the fire place, that now held a roaring fire, and the warmth it offered on this bitingly cold January night, but the familiarity of this room. This room's warm décor and coloration were like a second home to most of them. So many good things had happened in this room. So many legends and stories and songs and memories had happened here, and more would come; they just knew it.

Wes sat by himself, cross-legged, in front of the fire, staring broodingly into the flames. Nick and Jeff were sharing the loveseat cozily, both dangerously close to sleep while Kurt and Blaine sat on the large sofa, completely ignoring the majority of that piece of furniture in favor of snuggling close as publicly decent. It just seemed that after all that had happened over break and today even, being separated or far from one another was becoming harder and harder.

All was calm, all was peaceful, and then the doors to the room burst open in a startlingly dramatic fashion.

And their stood David, in all his glory, suitcase in hand, satchel over his shoulder, looking frozen to the bone, with a wild look in his eyes and an incredibly determined look on his face.

"You will _not _believe what I went through to get here." David said, his voice loud in the still room.

There was a beat of silent, one beat of silence, and then it broke.

Wes was vertical in an instant, letting out something between a wail, sob, and fan-girl scream. No one was sure if Wes took actual steps, jumped across the room with a single leap, or simply teleported, because, in a completely impossible blink of the eye, Wes had David wrapped in a spine snapping embrace that David returned just as enthusiastically. The suitcase slipped from David's fingers and landed on the wooden floors with a sharp thud, and his bag slipped off of his shoulder, down his arm and finally found refuge on the floor next to his suitcase. He and Wes stumbled around, unsteady on their feet after Wes slammed into him.

"I didn't think I'd ever see you again," Wes whispered as the rest of the guys still sitting down rolled their eyes, smiling fondly at Wes and David's overly dramatic bromance reunion.

"Oh please," David chuckled, words slightly muffled by Wes' sweater in his face as he kept his face turned into his best friend's shoulder, "I'll always come back for you."

And then Wes giggled. Flat out giggled. And the couples of the couches lost it. Jeff and Nick, now wide awake since the doors sprung open with a bang, were draped across one another, tears already making their way down Jeff's face. Kurt was laughing so hard that absolutely no sound was coming out; he just shook somewhat violently. Blaine on the other hand was letting out a booming, belly laughing filled with so much glee, it could really only be described as jolly.

Wes just scoffed at them, pulled away from David some, yet keeping his arms wrapped snuggly around his shoulders. "You just don't understand!" he cried melodramatically, pretending to flip long locks behind his shoulder in a haughty manor. "What we have is special!" removing his arms from the death grip it had on David's poor (most likely to be bruised tomorrow) shoulders, he linked it through David's elbow, as they both donned hideously hyperbolic pretentious faces. "Come on, David! We don't need this!" And with that they pivoted on their heels, scooped up David's bags and sashayed out of the room.

Wes was back.

Well…they all were.

And it was going to be one hell of a semester.

**A/N: So, so, so sorry it took me so freaking long to post this for you guys! But I would love, love, love reviews or a PM from you guys! Love you!**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Before you bust out the pitchforks for how ridiculously long it took me to update, just allow the holiday spirit to fill you. Is it bad that I'm using the "Good will unto men" (even though I'm a girl...but whatever, just technicalities…) as a means of defense? However, I want to go ahead and thank those who are still reading and reviewing, favoriting, following or any combination of the three! It makes me feel very lucky and loved, so thank you : ) To make up for the wait, I made this chapter extra long, so I hope it's good. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Glee.**

**Chapter 3**

It was remarkable how fast everything returned to normal. Wes and David were giggling like school girls with a crush, sharing every incredibly dull moment of their respective vacations with one another. Nick and Jeff still made heart eyes at one another and teased Kurt and Blaine mercilessly when they displayed the same sort of behavior.

They all ate breakfast and dinner together, studied together when classes started back up, and Blaine still wasn't allowed to cuddle with Kurt until they were finished with their school work. Warblers' rehearsal started up almost instantaneously, since Regionals was scheduled to happen on January 31st this year.

Every day was an endless cycle of waking, eating, classes, eating, more classes, Warblers' rehearsal, homework and studying, eating, and then, trying to squeeze in some time for fun…if Wes didn't spring an extra emergency rehearsal on them, which he usually did. "It's not a crime to be prepared!" Wes had argued. "But it's a crime to own slaves and make them preform forced labor!" Nick had shot back, earning snickers and nodding heads in agreement from the rest of the group.

Every one of them had become accustomed to feeling lucky they had survived another day when they collapsed in their beds every night. However, things weren't really normal. Sure, they had fallen back into their same schedules as before, but their lives had changed to the point where this "normal" was now the old normal. At least for Kurt and Blaine.

They hadn't told anyone besides Gran and Gramps about their engagement, mainly because things were crazy enough without their game changing news. It's not that they were afraid their friends wouldn't support them, in fact, they were almost 98% sure that there would be some horribly undignified squealing upon the divulgence of their announcement, but it just hadn't come up yet, as silly as that may sound.

Now the fact that Kurt and Blaine's families didn't know wasn't really so innocent. Kurt knew that his dad loved Blaine already and Carole was on the same boat, but marriage? He had a hard time believing that his overprotective, papa bear father, would be too accepting of a high school engagement. And Blaine's family? When Kurt had asked Blaine what he believed his family would do, how they would react to the news of their youngest getting married to another man, Blaine had responded with about a minute straight of laughing and then, after wiping away his tears of mirth, had said, "Yeah, not too good." And that had been the end of that.

However, another big reason the two had for keeping their secret a secret was the pure joy of knowing that this intimate shift in their relationship was theirs and theirs alone. It was between the two of them and didn't concern the rest of the world.

Realistically, they knew that they would have to come clean eventually, and spread news of the joyous engagement, but until that day, they enjoyed basking in their silent agreement.

However, now that they were back at Dalton, things were a little harder. No longer did they have entire days to sit around cuddling shamelessly. No longer could they sit down, completely alone, and just talk like they so often liked to do. No longer could they share a bed and fall asleep in each other's arms. For Kurt, that was probably the hardest part. He knew it was completely irrational, but the fear of being alone seemed to creep back into his brain at night when he lay alone. And then the nightmares started.

The first night back, he had been restless, hardly sleeping at all. The next night however, he dreamt that he and Blaine were married. Blaine had to make a trip out to L.A. for one reason or another. They kissed goodbye at the airport, a few tears were shed, but they knew it was only for a couple days, and that helped a little. Next thing Kurt knows, he's getting a call saying that the plane went down and there were no survivors. Kurt had shot up, ramrod straight with tears streaming noiselessly down his face. The next night, Blaine was taking the subway when the train derailed. The next night, a horrific car crash claimed Blaine's life. Every single time, Kurt would awaken with tears coursing down his face and silent sobs quaking through his slender frame. And every morning, when he met the guys in the cafeteria for breakfast, he tried his absolute hardest to act as if nothing had happened. He blew through cover up like mad, in an attempt to cover up the shadows growing darker everyday under his eyes. He reveled in the warmth of Blaine's words and touches even more than he used to, if that was even possible. Trying to commit them to memory; those ridiculous yet terrifying dreams making him fear that he wouldn't always have Blaine right by his side.

And perhaps it was incredibly overdramatic, even by Kurt's standards. And perhaps it wouldn't make sense to anyone else. And perhaps it was pitiful, but Kurt knew good and well exactly why he was having these nightmares: Happiness wasn't something that Kurt often got to keep. Examples? He made Glee club! Glee club was the most hated club in school…Finn is moving into his house! Finn called him a fag… He hit the high F! Threw the competition to save his father from embarrassment… Someone had a crush on him! That same someone also shoved him into lockers and threw him into dumpsters… So it only made sense that the greatest source of happiness in Kurt's life-Blaine- would be taken away from him too; somehow, some way, he would lose the love of his life…right?

When Blaine had slept next to him, it was almost impossible to worry. How could he when Blaine's strong arms were securely wrapped around him and his steady heartbeat was thumping away right underneath his ear? But, upon returning to school, and subsequently different rooms and beds, the gaping Blaine sized hole left by Kurt's side at night was glaring obvious and hurt like hell. He missed that ever present warmth because now he knew what it was like. Before vacation, sure, they had shared a bed, but not with any sort of consistency. Therefore, it was harder to miss what you didn't really have. Now? It was hell, pure and simple.

The last nightmare had been the worst to date, because it was a completely different sort of loss. In all the other dreams, some freak accident had taken Blaine, not only from Kurt, but from life. However, this time, it had been their wedding day. Kurt was walking down the aisle in a gorgeously tailored white tuxedo. The venue was decorated perfectly and the guests were dressed impeccably. However, as Kurt glanced around happily at the expectant faces of their families and friends, he saw looks of concern, worry, sadness and…pity? Kurt felt his brow crumple with confusion as he looked to the end of the aisle towards Blaine.

But Blaine wasn't there.

Kurt let go of his father's arm and raced to the end of the aisle, up to the podium where the wedding party was gathered, looking extremely awkward and nervous as they shuffled their feet and glanced around the room skittishly. Kurt's head swung to and fro frantically searching for his fiancé.

But Blaine was nowhere to be seen.

So Kurt waited. And waited…and waited…and…waited…

But Blaine never came.

Kurt awoke shaking like a leaf, already in hysterics. He shot a panicked look at the clock and saw it nearing 7:30. He only had about 30 minutes until he would be expected at breakfast. Shakily, Kurt stood on his own two feet, only to find standing a lot harder than he had previously thought it would be. He barely managed to get his legs to move him over to the bathroom, where he merely splashed some cool water on his sickly pale face and ran a brush distractedly through his hair. He shot some hairspray into his chestnut locks, more out of habit than an actual desire to style his hair. He didn't even mess with the cover up today; he had no energy to spare for the simple task. He ran a toothbrush over his teeth for nearly five minutes before he realized it didn't have any toothpaste on it. He quickly remedied that and re-brushed his teeth correctly. He threw on his Dalton uniform haphazardly and slung his bag over his thinning shoulder. Since the nightmares had begun almost 2 weeks ago now, his appetite had severely decreased, causing a less than subtle drop in weight. Kurt had probably only lost a couple pounds, but he hadn't really had the weight to loose in the first place.

Kurt found himself entering the cafeteria, not really remembering the walk across campus. As he neared the table, all of their heads rose to smile at their approaching friend. When they finally saw Kurt though, they collectively froze. Their usually immaculate countertenor looked like a zombie. His normally pale skin was ashen. His eyes had thick purple streaks under them, a clear indication of deep exhaustion. He was visibly shaking some, as though he were standing in subzero temperatures, and his face was stone still, completely devoid of any emotion beside a haggard lethargy, if that could even count as an emotion.

Blaine's eyes widened in concern as he stood to greet his fiancé. His hands instantly reached out to cradle Kurt's face, thumbs anxiously stroking the soft skin that stretched across his prominent cheek bones. "Hey baby, what's wrong?" his hands flitted to feel Kurt's forehead, trying to discern whether or not he was running a fever. Instead, Kurt felt colder than normal. His face remained blank besides the fear pooling in his blue eyes as they helplessly searched Blaine's hazel pair looking for something. Reassurance, confidence, courage, something, _anything. _

"Do you feel sick?" Blaine asked, his brow furrowed with worry as he searched Kurt's face for any signs of answer.

Kurt just didn't have the energy though. Wordlessly, he stepped forward and looped his arms around Blaine's neck, drawing himself as close as he possibly could and let his body completely collapse against the slightly shorter boy, still trembling violently.

"Oh, baby," Blaine cooed, utterly confused, but reciprocating the embrace with as much love as he could. He ran his hands in, what he hoped was, soothing circles across Kurt's bony back. He could feel the individual notches in Kurt's spine clear as day. The lithe singer had always been slender and rather angular, but never before had Blaine been able to feel Kurt's ribs jutting out so dangerously before. He swallowed thickly, his nerves at this whole situation beginning to constrict his throat. He was nervous, and he was scared and he didn't know how to fix it. Blaine didn't like not being able to fix things.

Letting Kurt go finally, Blaine sat back down, shooting their curious friends warning looks. He sincerely doubted that his fiancé would want to talk about what was bothering him with a table full of people. No matter how much Kurt liked or trusted them, Blaine knew that Kurt hated to talk about his problems in front of large groups…or at all really…

Kurt hurriedly sat down beside Blaine, pressing the entire right side of his body flush against Blaine's left side, lining up their thighs perfectly. It was all Kurt could do to keep himself from crawling into Blaine's lap. He rested his head on the gel slathered Warbler's well defined shoulder and snaked his arms around his waist, holding on with a grip that would rival a boa constrictors. Blaine's eyes widened minutely. Yes, he and Kurt cuddled like crazy, but the way Kurt was clinging to him held far too much fear for Blaine to feel at ease.

Unsure of what else to do, Blaine settled his arm snuggly around Kurt's shoulders and pulled him tightly against himself. Kurt whimpered a little and tightened his hold on Blaine, unable to suppress the shivers raking through his body.

"I love you," Blaine whispered into Kurt's ear, unable to even attempt eye contact, since Kurt's cheek had slid down from Blaine's shoulder to rest on his chest, Kurt's delicate nose nuzzled at the base of his neck, breathing deeply, as if Blaine's scent was the only kind of oxygen his body could process and without it he would die.

Kurt let out a barely audible strangled sounding whine in response and squeezed his eyes shut tightly. He was dreading the end of breakfast, when he and Blaine would have to depart to their respective classes.

"Are you hungry, love?" Blaine whispered to Kurt, not sure whether Kurt could handle anything over quiet whispers. It was almost as if any bigger of sound waves would break the fragile boy shivering in his arms.

Kurt shook his head the best he could from where it rested over Blaine's heart and whispered, "No." rather simply.

"Babe, you really should eat." Blaine argued softly, lifting a cube of pineapple from his bowl of mixed fruit and holding it teasingly in front of Kurt's mouth.

"No, thank you," the exhausted boy protested, shaking his head decidedly, eyes still squeezed shut.

"Oh-kaaayyy," Blaine teased, feigning casual as he tried to lighten the mood, "I guess I'll just have to eat this pineapple all by myself…" he sighed and felt Kurt peak up at him.

"But you hate pineapple." Kurt said, voice still extremely quiet. A tiny hint of a smile was on his lips, barely upturning the corners. His eyebrow was cocked in a softer version of his signature sanity questioning appraisal.

"Well, it doesn't look like I have a choice, now does it? It's like a box of puppies up for free adoption; if I leave the pineapple there, it will have to watch all of its brothers and sisters be taken away one by one. That's just cruel." Blaine whined playfully, glaring at the yellow, juice dripping fruit and positioning it before his mouth with a comical grimace. Slowly, oh so slowly, he slid it into his mouth, making completely over the top expressions of disgust. He really _didn't _like pineapple.

After swallowing the slimy morsel he hesitantly reached for another one, obviously not too jazzed about it. Kurt let out a little giggle and plucked the cube from Blaine's fingers before popping it into his mouth. He had taken his face off of Blaine's neck and chewed with a small, yet genuine smile on his lips, staring straight at the curly headed man.

"You're welcome." Kurt joked, swallowing the fruit with much more enjoyment than his better half had.

Blaine just grinned, happy that he was able to take Kurt's mind off of its troubles. He noted that Kurt was no longer shaking. Obviously a little playful behavior and one cube of pineapple wasn't going to erase the bags under his eyes and the fear still taking refuge in the background of them, and it wasn't going to replace the missing 5 or so pounds that Kurt had lost, but Blaine knew he couldn't fix that unless he knew what caused it. Shoving his concerns back, he decided that as long as he could keep Kurt smiling, he was off to a good start.

"Good morning, beautiful," Blaine replied, finally greeting his fiancé properly for the morning. He just smiled a goofy, toothy grin and lovingly placed a warm hand on Kurt's long, slender neck, smoothing his thumb over the porcelain skin softly.

Kurt hummed his approval and answered, "Good morning, gorgeous," trying his best to act normal and accept the love he was being offered. With a little effort (okay, a lot of effort) he was able to push the memory of the nightmare far away from his conscious mind and live in the present.

"Good morning, snuggle bear." Wes mocked, staring into David's eyes like a love-struck teenager .

"Good morning, scrumdiddlyumptious." David replied, leveling Wes a dopey grin and fluttering his eyelashes.

"Good morning, my precious butterfly." Wes shot back, batting bashfully at David's chest and looking down as if he were blushing.

"Good morning-" a rogue piece of pineapple slapped wetly against David's cheek mid-sentence. He froze, turning back to a snickering Blaine who sat next to a completely innocent looking Kurt who was daintily picking the pineapple cubes out of the bowl with incredible precision and concentration.

"Kurt," David asked sweetly, "did you just throw pineapple at me?

"I don't know _what _you are referring to." Kurt responded, batting his eyes and tilting his head as if he were truly troubled and confused as to where this accusation was coming from.

"Oh, okay, I see how it is." David nodded with playfully narrowed eyes as he plucked a sausage link up off of his plate and tossed it at Kurt's face. It hit its mark and fell greasily to the table top.

There was a beat of silence as Kurt stared, mouth gaping open in shock, at David's clear disregard for his skin. Everyone was stalk still, awaiting a reaction.

"Nice knowing you," Wes murmered.

A beat later and Kurt was throwing a handful of fruit at David's worried face, only to be met with a retaliation of scrambled eggs. Soon the entire table was throwing the rest of their breakfasts at one another, giggling like mad. Jeff picked Nick up by the waste and hoisted him up for a human shield, while Nick wiggled about in absolute gleeful hysterics; giggling so hard, he was snorting. Wes and David resorted to their snow ball fighting tactics, ducking down behind their trays before firing small handfuls of whatever they could get their hands on. Kurt let out loud laughs as he let loose, happy to finally feel something besides the fear and emptiness that had consumed his morning thus far while Blaine took to trying to block his face from flying breakfast meats.

When their breakfasts had been sufficiently scattered to the far corners of their entire table, they cleaned up best they could (not wanting to garner the sweet old lunch lady's wrath) and retreated hurriedly to their rooms to clean themselves up before classes.

As soon as Kurt shut himself in his room, shivers quaked down his spine as he viewed his immaculately made bed. Memories of the nightmare crept up to rear its ugly head. The feeling of loneliness, complete loss and abandonment washed through his body. He quickly stripped off his soiled uniform and donned a new one, combed out his hair, thankful that it wasn't littered with the greasy foods consumed by David at each and every meal, even breakfast. Anxiously, he nearly fled his room, wondering how much of an issue sleep would be if he couldn't even view his bed without silently panicking.

*~Line Break~*

As per usual, Blaine was waiting for Kurt outside of his first hour class when it ended, leaning casually against the wall opposite the door.

Kurt quickened his pace and nearly slammed into Blaine's chest, eager for his warmth to replace the growing fear that pooled in his heart when he was left alone.

"Well, hello to you too." Blaine chuckled, nuzzling his nose gently into Kurt's perfectly coiffed hair.

He laced their fingers together and proudly swung their linked arms as they made their way to Kurt's second hour class. Desperately seeking closeness, Kurt, using the hand that was already attached to Blaine's, drew the slightly shorter boy's arm around his shoulders, keeping their hands linked and making his arm now drape across his chest, as if he was positioning his hand to say the pledge of allegiance. Taking the hint, Blaine weaseled his hand out of Kurt's grasp only to motion for his other hand. Kurt quickly took the bait and reached his now free hand around Blaine's midsection, tugging him in close.

Blaine remained quiet, not entirely sure what to make of Kurt's obvious need for a close proximity. It's not that he minded, it was just knowing that Kurt needed this out of fright that unsettled him and made him wish that Kurt would talk to him. However, the middle of the hallway, in the middle of the school day was hardly the time or place. So he simply indulged his favorite countertenor and hoped it helped.

When they reached Kurt's next class, he quickly turned to the anxious boy and pulled him into a snug embrace, softly petting the back of the taller boy's neck.

"I love you." Kurt whispered, clutching back tightly.

Blaine pulled his face out of Kurt's blazer clad shoulder just enough to press a loving kiss to his soft lips. "I love you too, Kurt."

He finally disentangled himself as the one minute warning bell rang and gave Kurt a peck on the cheek. "I'll see you after class."

Kurt nodded and heading into his next class where he promptly zoned out.

Kurt hated that this dream had had this much of an effect on him. When he was still at McKinley, these sorts of dreams were fairly ordinary. Of course they didn't feature Blaine, since he had only known him towards the latter half of his days in that hell hole, and even then they were still just friends at the time, but the pesky nightmares had capitalized on Kurt's loneliness all the same. Sometimes he would have slightly comical ones of himself in the future, living alone, still in Lima, with a dozen or so cats. But some of the other ones could have him waking up in the middle of the night, clutching his hammering heart and sobbing, horrible, broken sobs. He would dream that he lost his father to a heart attack. He would dream that his mother was still alive and then wake, looking around anxiously for her, only to remember a few long seconds later that she was dead, never to be seen again. And sometimes he would dream that the rest of the world was just a cruel extension of high school, filled with abuse and intolerance. And then he met Blaine, and he learned what true understanding was. And then he moved to Dalton, where he learned what unconditional friendship was. And then he started dating Blaine and he learned what love was.

Beautiful, beautiful Blaine, who was, in Kurt's eyes, the complete embodiment of perfection. He had gorgeous, thick, brunette curls, that only he could put a pound of gel on and still pull off. He had a rather wonderful body and a voice made of pure silk. And that was just at a glance. Open him up though, and it was like getting a peak into the Garden of Eden…or so Kurt assumed. He was the kindest man Kurt had ever encountered. He meant good in all aspects of his life and through all interactions. He was courageous, truthful, funny, intelligent, thoughtful, and the list just kept on going. Kurt was fairly certain he could write an entire book on flattering adjectives for his fiancé.

While this was all good and wonderful, it was also a problem, because Kurt had never even allowed himself to dream that he could have a man like Blaine. He had never even allowed himself to dream that he would find any_thing,_ let alone any_one, _who would make him so happy. By all accounts, he wasn't allowed to keep what he wanted. He had _wanted _to keep his Steve McQueen scarf, but he couldn't when it was introduced to Mr. Slushy. He had _wanted _acceptance, but he got a death threat instead. Happiness was in limited quantities and it was a temporary gift.

So why would someone like Blaine, want someone like Kurt? A sad case who, by popular opinion, was apparently supposed to be disgusting, useless, and lonely. At least according to everyone in his old high school.

All of Kurt's insecurities, which he had thought he had overcome, had apparently just been hiding deep inside his brain, pushed back by the excitement and overwhelming change brought on by a new school, new friends, new boyfriend, and new glee club. Now that these things had a sense of familiarity to them, and Blaine's arms no longer held him safe and secure at night, they crept up and latched their teeth into his heart, toying with him while he tried to sleep. And damn, if it didn't scare him.

*~Line Break~*

The rest of the day progressed in an achingly similar fashion. Kurt would brood when alone or in class, unable to keep the insecurities at bay. When he was with Blaine, he clung to him like a lifeline, trying to convince himself that Blaine loved him and wasn't going anywhere. Trying to remind himself that when Blaine had promised forever, he had meant it. Trying to remind himself that this was real, and the dream was not.

It hardly helped.

After much debate, Kurt crawled into his bed at close to midnight, hoping that his level of exhaustion would provide him with a dreamless night.

It was silly of him to think that it would get better.

_"Kurt, we need to talk." Blaine was standing by the fire in the Warblers' rehearsal room, staring at the flames._

_ "About what?" Kurt asked curiously, coming up behind Blaine and snaking his long arms around the shorter man's trim waist._

_ With a small grimace, the curly headed man plucked Kurt's wrists up gingerly, like he was a little grossed out by his touch, and opened Kurt's arms so he could step out and away from Kurt._

_ "Blaine?" Kurt whispered, eyes beginning to fill with concern._

_ "This just isn't working, Kurt." Blaine answered, twisting his body to face Kurt. His normally warm hazel eyes were cold and detached._

_ Kurt's heart quickened._

_ "W-what?" he stuttered out, frozen in his spot._

_ Blaine heaved out a sigh, obviously aggravated that Kurt even had to ask. "I don't want to marry you, okay?" He began to pace back and forth in front of the terrified Warbler, eyes searching around angrily. "I just got caught up in the moment, you know? But marriage?" his cold hazel eyes zeroed in on Kurt, "To you? Come on!" and then he laughed like it was the biggest joke he had ever heard; like he really couldn't see how Kurt had ever thought it would be possible. _

_ "B-but, Blaine…I love you!" Kurt tried desperately, hands raking nervously through his hair, not caring what a mess it must have been at this point._

_ "And I thought I did too, but, I mean, who was I kidding?"_

_ Kurt's heart stuttered._

_ It was silent as Blaine finally stopped pacing, hands in jean pockets, eyes watching his own feet with a casual demeanor, as if he hadn't just ripped the heart of the man standing across from him to shreds. The only sound in the room was the crackling fire._

_ "Y-you…you could do better…" Kurt whispered, eyes watching Blaine warily, tears streaming down his now blotchy face._

_ There was a beat of silence._

_ And then Blaine let out a little chuckle._

_ And then he peeked up at Kurt through his eyelashes._

_ And then he smirked with amusement._

_ "Yeah…I could." He chuckled, looking rather satisfied._

Kurt woke up to his own sobs, thrashing around wildly, trying desperately to break out of his smothering cocoon of blankets. He finally crashed down to the floor, arm clipping the corner of his bedside table painfully and leaving a long scratch down his arm.

He quickly scrambled to his feet, not even paying an iota of attention to the blood beginning to slip down his now injured arm. Through his body shaking sobs, he lurched forward, slamming into the door and ripping it open, acting completely on instinct. He rushed down the hall and wretched Blaine's dorm room door open, diving inside frantically. He instantly lunged across the room and landed on the bed, lungs heaving and heart pounding.

Blaine woke with a jolt at the sudden movement on his mattress, only to find his fiancé with tears positively pouring down his pale, terrified face.

In an instant, the curly headed Warbler was wide awake and sitting up, opening his arms for the frantic boy in his bed. Kurt fell into Blaine's arms as a jittery mess, hiccupping and shaking uncontrollably, still functioning without conscious thought; he just sought out the one person who could make him feel better.

Blaine held him just as tightly as Kurt was clinging to him. It was almost uncomfortable, but there was no way he would deny the love of his life the comfort he so obviously needed.

"Kurt? Kurt, baby, what's wrong?" he cooed, fear drenching his voice as he rocked their bodies slowly, willing Kurt's sobs to stop; the sound just shattered his heart.

Kurt somehow managed to grip Blaine tighter. "I l-love y-you, I love y-you, p-ple-" massive gasp of pain and another sob ripped from his throat, "please, please, please don't l-leave me!"

"Leave?" Blaine questioned, utterly confused. "I'm not going anywhere, baby." He pulled back just enough to grasp Kurt's face tightly between his palms, staring straight into his gorgeous, soupy blue eyes. "Kurt," he said firmly, praying that Kurt was not only hearing him, but understanding the absolute truth in his words, "I'm not going anywhere. I'm _not _leaving."

"B-but you w-will!" Kurt argued, tears still coming in torrents, "S-someday, you'll r-realize what a failure I a-am! Y-you'll realize how m-much b-better you c-can do! B-but p-please B-Blaine! I can do b-better! I can b-be better! Just tell me w-what y-you want, and I'll d-do it!"

Blaine's brow creased it confusion, completely at a loss for where this was coming from. Why would Kurt think this way? How did he not see how perfect he was?

He pulled Kurt's face incredibly close to his own, until they were nose to nose, Kurt's shuddering slowing some, due to his surprise.

"Kurt Elizabeth Hummel." He said it with such authority that Kurt's tears seemed to just shut off. He became still, eyes wide, waiting for Blaine to continue. "You don't ever need to change. Not for me, not for anyone. You're perfect just the way you are. I am going to marry you because of who you are, _right now. _And who you've been. And who you're _going _to be. I'm with you because _I love you_. You and no one else. Why would you ever even _think _I wouldn't want to keep an angel forever?"

And with that question hanging between them, Kurt's tears began to spill over again, much more controlled than previously. He confessed to Blaine the nightmares that had been plaguing him for the past 2 weeks. Blaine just held him tight and soothed away the occasional shudder with a kiss to his forehead, his nose, his temple.

"Kurt?" Blaine finally spoke, cradling the slender boy from where they had ended up lying down, cuddled together under the covers. The boy in question lifted his head off of Blaine's chest to look at him, indicating he had his attention. "Those dreams were just that: a dream. They weren't real and they never will be, okay? I love you too much to ever let you go."

Kurt's eyes seriously searched his. After a few moments he nodded his head resolutely. "Okay." He answered simply, leaning down to kiss Blaine adoringly on the lips. They both smiled into it, parting with relieved grins on their faces.

"Hold on," Blaine said suddenly, leaping out of the warm bed and over to his closet.

"So much for never leaving me," Kurt muttered playfully, just loud enough for Blaine to hear as he re-approached the bed.

"Do you want this or not?" Blaine teasingly threatened, opening his fist to reveal a small black velvet box.

Kurt's eyes grew instantly larger as he eyed the box. "Blaine?" he asked warily, trying not to jump to conclusions. Still, he slid over to where Blaine was kneeling on the bed, copying his posture and facing his fiancé.

"I know we've already said the words and made the promise, but I know how much you wanted a ring. In fact, I'm surprised I haven't heard any sassy comments about 'putting a ring on it' from you yet."

"Oh, don't worry, they were coming." Kurt assured, smirking at his love.

"Which is why," he trailed off, opening the box to reveal a beautiful white gold band. It was thin enough to be elegant but thick enough to have an air of masculinity to it. In the center of the band, ran a set of small white diamonds that went all the way around the ring. It was simplistic and graceful. Sophisticated and timeless. It was perfect. "I got you this."

Carefully, Blaine pulled it from the box and gently lifted Kurt's slender hand. "Now, when we _can't _be together, or the nightmares get bad," he slid it seamlessly onto Kurt's ring finger; the fit was undeniably perfect, "you can feel this weight on your hand and remember that I promised forever," his eyes finally turned away from the marvelous sight of Kurt, _his _Kurt, wearing that ring, "and I meant it."

Unable to speak, Kurt leaned forward smoothly, with purpose and kissed Blaine with all the love he felt.

That night, they shared a bed, neither one wanting to remove themselves from the other's arms. School rules be damned; some things are just more important.

**A/N: Since I probably won't update until after Christmas, I hope you all have a happy and safe holiday! Do you know what makes an awesome Christmas present? Reviews! Please? I love you guys!**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Hey everybody! Sorry it took me forever! I've been on vacation, but I finally found the time and motivation. Also, if I'm being honest, I was dreading writing this chapter because…well, you'll see. As always though, I want to thank those of you who are reading, favoriting, following and reviewing! It never gets old! Anyways, I'm going to let you read now! Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Glee**

**Chapter 4**

Upon waking, the two lovebirds quickly departed to dress in their uniforms, only to meet again in Blaine's room and settle themselves back onto the bed; enjoying the quiet before they had to meet the others for breakfast.

Idly toying with Kurt's fingers, Blaine marveled at the sight of the engagement ring looped around. His heart felt like it was beating with a new vitality; like this was the purpose his heart was thumping so hard, not that he minded.

"So," the raven haired Warbler began, kissing Kurt's forehead lovingly, "are you planning on wearing that ring all day, or did you want to break the news to the guys some other way?"

"Break the news? You make it sound like someone died," Kurt teased, fully awake but snuggled into Blaine lazily.

"I may have," Blaine said, switching on a saucy smile and winking like a pro, "because I think I died and went to heaven…angel."

"Oh my God, Blaine, really?!" Kurt laughed, shoving his boyfriend off of the bed and laughing even harder when he heard the now grounded man wheeze out, "Did it hurt this bad when you fell from heaven?"

"Blaine, if I'm the angel in these scenarios, am I_ in_ heaven or _out_ of it? Your pick up lines contradict one another." He couldn't contain his giggling as Blaine groaned and stood up, straightening his tie and spine out, and muttered about 'buzz kills' and 'smart ass fiancés'.

"Blaine!" Kurt nearly snorted, jumping off of the bed and skipping over to the shorter Warbler as he donned his jacket and grabbed his satchel.

"Oh, I'm sorry, am I wanted now? " Blaine teased, pouting slightly, trying to keep a straight face.

"Well…" Kurt pretended to think, as his arms looped around Blaine's neck and he allowed his fingers to toy with the small curls at the nape of his neck, lucky enough to escape the gel, "tolerated."

Kurt just swooped in and kissed Blaine's pout away, unable to hold in his giggle of amusement. He loved how shamelessly cheesy Blaine was, and only for him.

"Oh, and Blaine?" Kurt asked as he rested his forehead against his, "I'm going to wear the ring."

Blaine couldn't stop the smile that bloomed across his face, threatening to split his face in two. "Are you sure, because if you're not ready to tell people yet, that's okay too."

"Blaine, I'm sure." Kurt said firmly.

And with that, they pulled on their blazers, grabbed their bags, laced their hands together, and headed to the cafeteria.

*~Line Break~*

Taking a chance, Kurt and Blaine intertwined their hands, ring and all, and proudly swung them as they entered the cafeteria.

"Hey guys," Jeff greeted amiably, as the two took their seats.

They each bid good morning and settled into sipping their coffees and munching on toast. Well, toast for Kurt. Blaine however, opted for a myriad of different breakfast foods, including several meats that had Kurt cringing with disapproval.

"You're going to give yourself a heart attack by 30, Blaine," Kurt said, glaring at the sausage links like they had personally offended him.

"And I shall die a happy man," Blaine smiled back, taking an over exaggerated bite of food and rubbing his stomach happily.

"Keep eating like that and you'll die a happy _fat _man," Kurt shot back.

"You know who else is a successful happy fat man? Santa." Blaine smirked, proud of himself.

"Oh yes Blaine, a man who has screaming children wanting to sit on his lap and give egotistical spiels as to what they want and why they deserve them, all so a fat man can think they're a saint and therefore worthy of some gift, commit dozens of impossible, not to mention illegal, things to enter their house on one day a year and leave toys obviously bought at Toys-R-Us, not made by elves, under their trees. What a fabulous role model to have."

The entire table was silent for a while, all eyes on Kurt as he nonchalantly took a sip of his coffee.

"When we have kids, Christmas is going to be my holiday, okay honey?" Blaine patted Kurt's hand reassuringly, while the rest of the table watched in a mixture of amusement and bafflement; not entirely sure what to make of this banter.

"Well, if you keep eating that food, you aren't going to live long enough for us to have kids." Kurt smiled a devious smile that said, _Aw yeah, full circle, bitch._

Finally interrupting, Nick piped up jokingly, "Wow, future kids. We're getting pretty serious, aren't we?"

"I mean, I guess…" Kurt mumbled, feigning disinterest. Casually, Kurt flung his hand up from its hiding place in his lap to flash this engagement ring clad finger into view for all of their friends.

It was impossible not to feel the weight of everyone's eyes zeroing in on the ring.

"Oh my God…" Nick breathed

Pause.

"Oh my God?" Nick asked in question, making sure that it really was what he, and everyone else, was assuming.

Kurt nodded, a small smile beginning to bud on his lips.

"Oh my God! OH MY GOD! _OH _MY _GOD!"_ Nick had leapt out of his chair and was practically hopping around like a rabbit, completely unsure of what his next move should be. Finally, he decided to just throw his body at Kurt and hope that 1. He caught him and 2. It counted as a sufficient congratulations.

The chestnut haired Warbler couldn't help but giggle with delight as he (barely) caught Nick. Blaine however, was too distracted watching Kurt and Nick with an embarrassing grin on his face to notice Wes apparently come to the same decision as Nick. His squealing body slammed right into the still sitting Blaine and effectively tackled the shorter man to the ground. Jeff pried Nick off of Kurt after a while, which proved to be quite a feat considering Kurt didn't really want to let go either; the two of them had already begun talking wedding locations. Once Nick was pulled off of Kurt and tucked under Jeff's arm, the tall blonde guy couldn't help but swoop in for his very own bear hug, complete with lifting Kurt off of the ground and spinning him around a few times. David still appeared to be in shock, as he stood shakily and mumbled out jumbled congratulations and terms of endearment. The whole cafeteria watched with slightly confused gazed but ultimately decided against investigating; their table was always weird after all.

"So when did this happen? Last night?" Nick asked breathlessly, gripping Jeff's arm so hard it was sure to leave bruises. It had to be uncomfortable for Jeff, but he just gripped Nick's arm right back.

"Well, I actually proposed over winter break…" Blaine answered, eyeing Kurt lovingly as they tangled their hands together on top of the table, ring and all.

David didn't seem capable of tearing his eyes away from the sparkle of the ring.

"If you're not careful, David will take that back to his nest." Wes teased, patting David on the back, "He likes shiny things."

"Shut up, man," David argued lightly, shrugging off Wes' hand and still staring stubbornly at the white gold band wrapped around Kurt's finger. "It's just…whoa," David let out a gargantuan sigh and drug a hand down his face, almost as if he were suddenly consumed by exhaustion. "Marriage." He said simply, letting the word sink in for all of his friends. "That's…_big_." His eyes finally flicked up to meet Kurt and Blaine's; flitting back and forth between dark hazel and swirling blue. "I am so _happy_ for you, because you make me think that marriage can actually work."

It wasn't a secret that David's parents were divorced considering they each liked to show up to school functions separately, find each other, and rip each other a new one. But only David's close friends knew just how much this bothered him, while the rest of the world just saw him shrug it off and chuckle about having to raise his own parents. It had been Wes, all those years back, that had insisted David live at his house for the few days his dad was packing up and leaving, just so he wouldn't have to watch his dad pack up his old life, _their _life, just to join his new family. That's right, David's father had been caught cheating when David was 10. At ten, he was old enough to know what cheating was and for his parents to feel as though they didn't need to hide things from him. So they screamed. And screamed. And screamed. It felt like years until they finally quit. And then, all of a sudden, it was over. The divorce papers were filed and they waited in heated silence for them to work their way through the system. The silence was so loud, so charged, that it seemed as though a single disturbance in it would set the place ablaze. After the ugly divorce, David had been left with little to no hope in the sanctity of marriage. For him to say that Kurt and Blaine made him believe? That was…wow. Plain and simple, wow.

Kurt placed his hand on top of David's where it lie on top of the table, squeezing it gently in appreciation and caring.

The bell rang loudly, disrupting the moment and causing everyone to begin gathering their things. Shooting David a soft look, the boy just smiled gently back and turned without another word, a slightly concerned Wes not too far behind.

"Hey Jeff, why don't you go ahead to class? I need to talk wedding planning with Kurt really quick."

"If you're hoping that he'll let you plan his wedding, I wouldn't hold your breath babe." Jeff smiled, one hand grasping the strap of his messenger bag while the other toyed with Nick's lapel.

"Do I _look _stupid to you?" Nick asked haughtily.

Jeff just smiled and leaned down to kiss the smaller brunette on the cheek, "Never."

"Good answer." Nick approved, waving as his boyfriend walked away.

He turned around to see Kurt doing the same thing with Blaine, both of the fiancés smiling like a couple of lovesick romantics.

Kurt and Nick began meandering their way out of the cafeteria in a comfortable silence.

Deciding to break it, Nick nearly whispered, "I'm going to tell my parents."

Hearing Nick say the word _parents_ automatically perked Kurt's ears, his interest caught. He knew of Nick's past with coming out to his parents. They were the kind of people who were convinced that homosexuality was a curable disease. In fact, the only reason Nick was even _at_ Dalton was so that he could get cured and didn't have to live under their roof.

"Tell your parents what?" Kurt asked quietly, curious as to what he was talking about and why he had brought it up in the first place.

"I'm going to tell my parents that I'm going to propose to Jeff."

"Oh." Was all that that Kurt could think to say in response, his mind a little unsure of how to process this new information.

"Not right now or anything! When I said I wanted to wait, I meant it. But I want my parents to know my intentions. I want them to know that I'm never going to be straight and that not only do I love men, but I love _a _man and his name is Jeff and I'm going to marry him someday." He said this with such conviction and surety that Kurt felt a tear begin to prick his eye.

"Nick, that's…that's great." Kurt finally said, a smile busting out across his face like the sun over the horizon.

"I…I think I'm going to do it now, before I lose my nerve." Nick said, obviously coming to this decision halfway through the sentence.

"Are you sure?" Kurt questioned, just trying to keep his friends best interests in mind.

"Yes." Nick answered simply.

Looking in the direction of his classroom, Kurt glanced back at Nick and asked hurriedly, "Do you want some company?"

Nick just nodded his head, "No, thanks, I think I can handle it."

Placing his hand on the brunette's shoulder, Kurt smiled warmly with as much encouragement as he could possibly fit, before quickly walking off to class.

_Now or never, _Nick thought, pulling his phone from his pocket. He scrolled through his contacts until he found the almost forgotten one of 'Mom'. If it had been a book in the library, it would be the one you dramatically blow all the dust off of after years of disuse. Before his mind could give him a reason to stop or chicken out, Nick pressed the call icon on his touch screen and waited with baited breath as the shrill ringing sounded through his ears.

"Hello?" a pleasant, yet detached voice answered. She was using what Nick often referred to as her 'Business voice'.

"Mom?" he asked, immediately feeling stupid. _Of course it's your mother, _he thought, _you called the mom contact; who else did you expect it to be? _"Hi, it's Nick." _She has caller ID, idiot!_

Nonetheless, her voice deflated, as if she had been expecting someone else. "Oh, hello." She repeated, immediately finding this call much more of a nuisance and inconvenience when she learned who it was that was on the other line. "Are you cured yet?" she asked matter-of-factly.

The two or three other times Nick had called his mom over the past few years, this had been her conversation starter too.

"Uh, no," Nick mumbled, almost ashamed. He hated how his parents, his mother in particular, absolutely demolished his confidence and self-esteem without even trying. "That's actually sort of what I wanted to talk to you about though, see," he took a deep breath to steady himself and plowed ahead, "I'm _never _going to be cured. I don't have a disease; I'm gay. And mom? I'm in love." Feeling an odd surge of confidence, he was just about to tell her his plan to propose and live happily ever after, no matter what she or his father said, when she decided to speak.

"You're not cured? And you're in love? So you _love_ another boy!" she spat it out as though it was a filthy accusation. "I _told _your father that sending you to an all boys' school was a stupid idea, but no, he insisted that it was strictly attended by gentleman, who didn't entertain such _disgusting_ thoughts as you. He said that being surrounded by _real _men would help you see the light, but I knew that you would just sink your teeth into some poor, innocent boy and fill his head with, with… _faggy _thoughts and urges just like you!" Her voice was ice cold and so indescribably bitter that it was clear any maternal love she had ever possessed was gone. She wasn't speaking to a son, she was speaking to low-life scum.

"Mom, it's not like that!" Nick urged, desperately hoping, by some great act of God, that she would see the truth he spoke. "I love him, he loves me an-"

"What you two have is _not _love!" She screeched, "And that is why I will be taking you out of that school immediately and enrolling you in a new academy."

Nick physically felt his face drain of all color and his heart skip a beat. "NO!" he shouted, panic coursing through his veins-sheer panic. "No, mom, no, don't do that!" he needed to think fast, he couldn't leave, he just couldn't. "Listen, I'll try harder, okay? I-I'll end it."

The line was silent, as she turned it over in her mind. No doubt, she was wondering if the son she didn't even love was worth all the extra money and time needed to execute a mid-year transfer. Apparently not. "Fine, but you end it, do you understand?"

"Yes mother, I understand."

"Nick," she warned, "Now, I pay a great deal of money to send you there and your father has a lot of pull in that faculty and staff. I employ some of those staff members. Do. You. Understand?" her voice was low and threatening.

Nick froze, almost unable to believe what he was hearing. "You're spying on me?" he managed to gasp out, fear beginning to constrict his heart.

"Stop being so melodramatic," she snapped, "we're keeping an eye on your progress-or lack thereof."

The line went silent. Nick didn't have any words left, he just felt like his heart was about to shatter.

"End it, Nicholas, I mean it. Or you're leaving Dalton." And with that, she hung up.

Nick stood rooted in his spot. How had such a good day turned so bad? And the worst part? The worst was still to come.

Nick ignored school that day. He didn't really mean to, it just sort of happened. He walked to his second hour, but couldn't get himself to actually enter. Same with third and fourth hour. He just didn't see sitting still for an hour at a time going well for him today. His phone had a few texts from Jeff, wondering where he was and if he was alright. Part of Nick wanted to throw his phone against a wall and scream that he most certainly was _not _okay. He was so far from okay, it wasn't even funny. The other part of Nick wanted to run to Jeff, and drag him away from all this, so they could be together without a guillotine blade hanging over their necks. He wanted to bury his head into Jeff's chest and wrap his strong arms around his body and just feel s_afe, _but he knew he didn't have that choice. Not now, and never again, because faced with the choice of never seeing or talking to Jeff ever again, and not being Jeff's boyfriend, he didn't have another option.

He had no loop hole, no way around it. He couldn't mess this up, because messing up meant boarding schools overseas where he wouldn't have a phone and wouldn't receive mail and would have no access to a computer that didn't block all social networking sites. Messing up meant never seeing Jeff's beautiful face again, never hearing his precious voice that made all the hateful words of his parents anecdotal, it meant to more Jeff. And Nick knew, bone deep, that he wouldn't make it in a world without Jeff. Yes, he loved Jeff like mad. They were head over heels, stupid in love. But beyond that, Jeff was his best friend and his rock. He needed at the _very _least the _sight _of him. Nick needed to be able to remind himself that people like Jeff existed; that _Jeff _existed. He needed to remind himself that at one point in his life, he was loved so unconditionally, so mercilessly, that he had had a reason to wake up each morning. And it broke his heart that he had to use past tense. Because he had to end it.

When the lunch bell rang, Nick raced towards his dorm room, wanting nothing more than darkness and solitude. He was just turning out of the building that housed his fourth hour when a hand landed securely on his shoulder, turning him around in one smooth motion.

"There you are!" Jeff sighed, relief tainting his voice as he enveloped Nick in a loving hug and planted a kiss on top of his head. "Where were you last hour?"

Taking a closer look at Nick's face, he saw the distress and absolute heartbreak being forcefully shoved back in his eyes. "Nick?" he cautioned, cradling his face in between his huge hands, compassion radiating out of every pore in his body.

"Jeff," the shorter brunette choked in response, trying so incredibly hard to keep his tears in.

"What is it, baby?" he said, concern clouding his eyes.

With that, Nick closed his eyes and took a step back, causing Jeff's hands to drop from his face into the void growing between them.

"I-I…I think we should break up." He whispered, eyes frozen in shock as the words actually crossed his lips.

The entire hall was silent. Everyone was off eating lunch, leaving only the two of them lingering in the hallways of an academic building.

Jeff couldn't move. He didn't know how. It was like all of his memory that told him how to breathe and move and feel had simply vanished. "_What?_" he finally managed to whisper, eyes already turning up tears.

"I-I…It's over." Nick said, unable to hide the sheer look of agony that ripped through him.

"B-but…" _Use your words! _Jeff screamed internally, _Make him stay! _"But I love you! Nick, I love you, and you love me and we're supposed to graduate and get an apartment together in Chicago and go to the University and get degrees in culinary arts and fashion design and we're supposed to be poor as hell until you're designs are discovered and I open my 5 star restaurant and we're supposed to have an indoor wedding with a cream and emerald green color scheme and we're supposed to have 2 kids together, a boy and a girl, both adopted and we're supposed to grow old together!" he was sobbing by the time he was finished rambling to Nick all the plans that he already knew of; they had made them together, but he just couldn't stop. The faster his tears fell, the faster his words fell, "We're supposed to be together forever because I know you love to wear lavender, but not any other purple because you say it washes you out and I know that you have a weakness for chocolate muffins and I know that you always cry when you watch 'Little Miss Sunshine' , and-and, I _know_ you, Nick, I know you!" he reached out helplessly but Nick just took another step back.

"Who were we kidding?" Nick asks, eyes wild with sadness, tears starting to trickle down his face and dripping miserably off of his chin, "This is high school; we would never make it." He choked towards the end and had to bite his bottom lip violently to stop the sob trying to erupt from his throat. Shivers rocked his frame ruthlessly.

"Nick, p-please! Please!" Jeff flat out begged as Nick began backing away, step by step, shaking his head like it was broken and he didn't know how to stop.

Finally turning, Nick ran for his dorm.

Jeff stayed on his knees on the ground.

It all just hurt too much.

**A/N: I'm sorry, I'm so sorry! Don't hate me! I'm also sorry for the bad ending to this chapter, but I'm sitting on the hard, cold tile floor in a hotel bathroom because SOME PEOPLE don't like it when you're up all night typing away…jerks... :p I'll try to post sooner next time, so keep your eyes peeled. As always, I love to hear from you, so review or PM me! Let me have it…but be gentle…but really show me who's boss…but don't hurt me... (Love you!)**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Ahhh! It's been so freaking long and I'm so freaking sorry! Schools been a you-know-what lately and work hasn't been much better! Also, I wrote a one shot titled "Feels Like the End" (I promise, it's not sad; it's pretty cute) so check it out please! But, enough with excuses! I really hope that you like this chapter I'm so, so grateful to those of you who are still reading and sticking with me through this! Anyways, I hope you enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Glee**

**Chapter 5**

The campus seemed quieter all of a sudden. It was like everything was infinitesimally _off _somehow. News of the breakup had spread like wild fire. This breakup was supposed to be impossible; Nick and Jeff were NickandJeff-inseparable. So what happens when they're…separated?

Blaine, Kurt and David were lounging around in David's room when the door banged open noisily to reveal a disheveled and disturbed looking Wes. His black hair was sticking up in all sorts of directions, an obvious sign that he had been restlessly carding his fingers through it. Those same fingers were now fidgeting somewhat helplessly in front of his body, seemingly not aware of where he should put them or what he should do with them.

"Wes…?" David asked slowly, eyes wide with shock and concern. He stood slowly, walked over to Wes, placing a hand on his shoulder in, what he hoped was, a relaxing gesture.

"Nick and Jeff broke up." Wes said with massive amounts of disbelief in his voice, as if his brain physically couldn't process this information. Poor Wes looked so confused.

However, it was nothing compared to the look on Jeff's face when he appeared outside the dorm room door, pacing up a storm. His hands were gripping his hair so tightly that if he wasn't careful, he'd be leaving with a fistful of it when he finally moved his hands away. His teary eyes were ringed with dark, bruise like shadows.

"They…wait-what?!" Blaine stuttered, completely dumbfounded. It was as if the world was upside down. Nick and Jeff were a constant, almost like a fact. They just couldn't _change _out of nowhere!

"Nick broke up with me!" Jeff wailed, chest heaving as he tried desperately to stop the sobs from erupting out of him. "He didn't want me anymore!" he cried, finally entering the room, not bothering to shut the door. He paced madly in front of everyone, like a caged animal. Everyone else in the room just stared in shock.

"B-but," Kurt stuttered, the puzzle pieces not fitting together in his mind. The big picture wasn't coming together for him. Nick broke it off? But the ring, and the long talks, and the story of how Nick and Jeff met? How could Nick just…end it? "B-but…Nick loves you!" Kurt argued futilely, grasping at straws because he really didn't have anything else.

"Yeah, well, things change!" Jeff bellowed, his face crumpling in a heart breaking show of overwhelming sadness and fury. He stalked towards Kurt as if he wanted to throw him or hit him. Which, in all honesty, he probably did, considering his current state of emotional turmoil. However, at Jeff's threatening advance towards Kurt, Blaine stood up, quick as a cheetah and placed both hands on Jeff's chest firmly, giving him a look that clearly stated _stop before you do something stupid. _

Jeff thankfully understood the message and took a large step back, hands running through his hair yet again and tugging mercilessly at it. In the blink of an eye, he had picked up Wes' desk chair and thrown the cheap plastic furniture piece at the not-so-cheap wooden bookcase across the room. A gut-wrenching scream tore up Jeff's throat and echoed loudly throughout the room, his tears starting to shove out over the brim of his lower lid and trickle down his face to drip off of his chin. He stomped the ground with his foot furiously a few times before screaming, "I lost him! I let myself believe that he would choose me, but who was I kidding!? God, I'm such a fucking idiot!" he kicked the door, making it swing shut and slam loudly. Deciding to take a different course of action, Jeff threw the door open and threw his body out into the hall, nearly running down the hallway.

The rest of the group just sat in stunned silence, unsure if they should do something, and exactly _what _that something should be. Suddenly, Kurt was on his feet, sprinting out the door to catch up with Jeff. As it turns out, he didn't have to go very far. Jeff had only made it to the end of the hall where it looks like he had collapsed, back flat against the wall, his legs sprawled out across the hall and a look of exhaustion replacing the tear stained face that Kurt had just seen a minute or two prior. Kurt walked until he came to Jeff's side and sat down next to him, careful to leave a few inches of space between the sides of their bodies, not sure how Jeff would handle that in his frayed state.

Jeff answers that for Kurt after a few silent minutes of Kurt merely sitting next to Jeff, against the wall, mirroring his sprawled out legs. Jeff heaved a strangled sigh and curled his body into a ball, leaning fully onto Kurt, seeking a reassurance that Kurt just couldn't give him. So, instead, Kurt just wrapped his arms around the weeping brunette and held him close. Jeff's tears came back in body shaking sobs; the kind that drain you of all your energy and leave you absolutely helpless…hopeless…broken…

"It _hurts," _Jeff whimpered quietly, "It just hurts _so much, _Kurt!" His words came out as passionate whispers, wracked with the pain that only comes from heartbreak.

Kurt tried to put himself in Jeff's shoes. What would he want someone to tell him if Blaine just up and left him-_oh!_ He felt something constrict his heart and lungs just at the _thought _of Blaine breaking up with him. But what if Blaine really did wise up someday and realize that he could do so much better than Kurt? What would Kurt do then? Well…cry, he decided. And throw things, and cuss people out and overturn tables and…well, he's not exactly sure what all he would do, because it wouldn't be coming from a place of anger, it would be a place of unbelievable pain that slowly ripped you apart, piece by piece from the inside. It would be from a place of absolute loss; a loss of self, happiness, purpose…a loss of _Blaine. _So what would Kurt want someone to tell him as they held him on the floor of the dormitory hallway? He knew it most definitely wouldn't be 'It'll be okay'. In fact, if someone told him that while he was mourning the heartbreak of Blaine calling it quits, he would probably cause some sort of bodily injury unto that person because, what sort of dumb ass tells you that 'It'll be okay' when you're crying in the fetal position on a carpet that probably hasn't been steam cleaned since Reagan was in office? No, it wouldn't be 'okay'. And Kurt knew that he wouldn't want someone to lie to him and fill him with false hope, because that did nothing but lift you up and provide more distance for you to fall when they're words and promises fall through and are revealed for what they really are: lies. False. Fake.

"We're going to get him back." It wasn't a lie. Kurt knew, beyond a doubt, that Nick loved Jeff with all of his heart. _Something _must have happened. Now, Kurt just had to figure out _what… _And instead of making flimsy assurances that 'It'll be okay', Kurt gave him the _how. How _will it be okay?: They would get Nick back.

Jeff lifted his head off of Kurt's chest and lifted his watery gaze up to Kurt's eyes, hope and uncertainty battling for dominance in his gaze. "Please?" he asked it as a question that almost sounded like he was begging…_which he probably is_, Kurt decided.

"We're going to get him back." Kurt repeated, voice absolutely drenched in pure conviction.

His words didn't stop the crying, but Jeff stopped trying to keep himself together. He let his sobs ring out in the hallway, curling into Kurt's side like he was an invaluable source of warmth; a beacon in the night. Kurt just held his friend close and repeated that one sentence that seemed to be tethering Jeff to reality. And, when the time came, when the sobs lessened to shivers and a few rebel tears, when Jeff was ready, he would follow that sentence back to shore and use them as a guide to function. Because, no, the words didn't keep his heart from falling apart into many different glass like slivers. No, the words acted like a jar as opposed to a glue. The words gave him a place to put all the pieces of his heart so that, one day, and God willing, one day soon, he would have all of the pieces in one spot so he could start rebuilding it.

"We're going to get him back."

*~Line Break~*

Going to bed that night wasn't easy for any of the boys. Neither Nick nor Jeff even bothered with the idea of sleep; each knew that without a goodnight kiss, the next time they slept would be when they passed out from exhaustion or were wrapped in each other's arms again; whichever came first.

David was too confused to get much sleep. If Nick and Jeff couldn't make it work, then what chance did he have? Did anyone actually have fairytale romances that ended in happily ever after anymore?

Wes, the eternal fixer, was going crazy because not only did he literally have _no _control over Jeff and Nick (well, not their hearts at least) but this was _their_ life, _their_ relationship; they had to straighten this one out on their own. Sure, maybe Wes could set up a meeting between the two of them, but that was the extent of his power and he wasn't crazy about the limitations so far.

Kurt didn't want to admit it, but Nick and Jeff's whole breakup had him more concerned then he liked. Firstly, he was dealing with the sadness of seeing two very dear friends in pain (even though no one had seen Nick since the breakup). He tried his hand at comforting and advice proffering, but not only was it exhausting, but it made him worry that he wasn't doing it right. Secondly, Kurt's mind would not stop replaying that thought he had had in the hallway with Jeff earlier in the day, 'What happens when Blaine realizes he could do so much better than me?' or more bluntly put, 'what happens when Blaine leaves?' Kurt felt silly worrying about such a thing. Blaine and he were engaged to be _married! _They loved one another! No one was going anywhere! …However, Nick and Jeff were in love…and Nick had an engagement ring ready to go at any moment… So really, what assurance did Kurt have? What if, one day, out of the blue, Blaine decided the Kurt wasn't what he wanted after all? Kurt didn't even want to _think _about that let alone how he would begin to pick himself up and brush himself off after something like that.

It was because of this unnerving thought, that Kurt had been silently mulling it over the remainder of the evening, and spacing out of conversations rather frequently. Blaine was a little worried. His fiancé was fine one moment, then he had run out the door to go console Jeff and when he came back almost two hours later he was jumpy and withdrawn. Maybe not a whole lot, but it was definitely noticeable to Blaine and their other friends. What had happened with Jeff? What changed in those two hours?

It was because of Kurt's odd attitude that Blaine asked if Kurt would spend the night in his room. He always felt calmer when Kurt was lying, wrapped around him under a mile high pile of sheets and comforters. He hoped it had the same effect for Kurt.

Kurt gladly accepted the invitation, and left David's room to go change into his pajamas and meet Blaine back in his room.

When Kurt gently slipped through Blaine's door a little over 30 minutes later, he saw that the lights were already turned off and Blaine had already claimed his side of the bed , snuggled under the covers and looking so adorable, Kurt felt something crack in his soul. Almost as if the expansion of his love was running out of room for his body to contain any longer.

_What happens when he leaves?_

_ Shut up! _Kurt screamed internally to himself. He didn't need to be thinking such depressing thoughts; he _should _be cuddling shamelessly with his fiancé. Quietly, just in case Blaine was asleep, Kurt tiptoed over to the bed, lifted the very corner of the thick cocoon of blankets and slid in as gracefully as he could, trying not to jostle the mattress. The tall Warbler adjusted himself so he's lying on his side, facing Blaine, with his hands palm to palm and wedged underneath his head. He kept a little bit of a distance between them so that he could actually see Blaine's soft features in the silver moonlight that leaked in through Blaine's bamboo blinds. His midnight curls nearly melted into the surrounding blackness, but the streaks of pure shine illuminated his natural hair just enough to differentiate it. His full, plump lips were parted very, very minutely, allowing soft puffs of air to pass in and out as he slept peacefully. And, even closed, Blaine's eyes were still one of Kurt's favorite physical features on him. His dark, long lashes completely ringed all the way around his eyes and fanned out stunningly against the olive toned skin of his cheek bones. Blaine awake, exudes a certain kindness that you're either born with or not-it can't be learned. But asleep, Blaine looked positively angelic; like he could do no wrong.

_What happens when he gets tired of you?_

Perhaps sensing the intense scrutiny of Kurt's observations, ogling, and admiring, Blaine nuzzles his nose down into the pillow a little before scrunching up said nose and cracking his eyes open. His gaze fell on Kurt and immediately, he moved closer.

"Mmmm, too far…" he mumbled, moving over to where the fronts of their bodies are flush against one another and drapes an arm possessively over Kurt's waist, whilst the other snakes its way under Kurt's head so he can use Blaine's impressive bicep as a firm pillow.

"Better?" Kurt asks quietly, smiling lovingly at his adorable fiancé.

"Mmmm, almost…" and Blaine leans forward to give Kurt an agonizingly sweet kiss, humming happy noises the entire time. "Now it's better…" he smiles largely, obviously very pleased with himself and tightens his grip on Kurt as if he never intended to let go.

_What happens when he lets go?_

Kurt's easy smile tightens around the edges just enough for even Blaine's sleepy eyes to catch it. "What's wrong, honey?"

And Kurt almost starts crying because _honey _is what Blaine is going to call him when they're in their seventies, sitting on the front porch, watching their grandkids play in the yard with their older-than-dirt dog, McQueen.

_What happens when it all ends?_

As the tears begin to collect in his nearly moonlit glowing blue eyes, Kurt watches Blaine's eyes widen, pushing the fatigue away instantly. Before the shorter Warbler can say anything, Kurt reaches out silently and lays his right index finger on top of Blaine's beautiful lips. Blaine continues to watch him with a mix of curiosity, interest, and concern as Kurt begins caressing Blaine's face with deft fingers and a purpose.

He traces his pointer finger down from his lips to the barely there dimple in the center of Blaine's chin that is hardly a dimple at all. It's really just a shallow dip in the muscle and skin that one would only notice if they spent ample amounts of time near one Blaine Anderson's lips. Kurt brought his other hand up and used just one finger to trace Blaine's left eyebrow smoothly and slowly before doing the same unto the other one. He gently traced the bridge of Blaine's nose and thought about how Blaine always wiggled his nose when waking up or falling asleep. It was really too cute for words. He took both thumbs and cupped the sides of Blaine's face in the gentlest of cradles before letting his thumbs extend out fully and stroke both of Blaine's cheek bones. He drug his short, manicured nails lightly down the skin the stretched from the base of his extremely short sideburns and travelled down his chiseled jaw, raising shivers on his raven haired fiancé who was still staring straight into his eyes while Kurt's gaze was focused on his ministrations with a healthy dose of fascination and intrigue, almost like he had never seen a Blaine before…or a human at all, the features completely foreign to him. He brought a single index finger over to Blaine's eye and, oh so gently and with extra caution, moving slower than a snail, he brought his finger closer and closer to Blaine's wide hazel eyes that were looking at him with so much love and interest, almost like he was going to poke him in the eye. Instead, he stopped a mere centimeter or two away from those precious hazel orbs and gently petted the long eyelashes that framed his eyes. At this, Blaine smiled bashfully and averted his gaze downward as a delicate blush flushed his skin, chuckling a breathy laugh that sounded so relaxed, one would imagine that the world was moving slower. With Blaine's eyes downcast, the thin skin of his eyelids were revealed, and Kurt gently ran a thumb over them, almost reverently, emitting another breathy chuckle from Blaine that melted effortlessly into a sigh of all consuming content. His whole tactile exploration of Blaine's face had been almost like worship to his love, his lover, his fiancé, his future.

_But what happens when he doesn't want you anymore?_

Blaine's eyes opened very slowly when Kurt removed his thumbs and brought his hands to rest on the sides of Blaine's peaceful, painfully smitten facial expression.

"I wish I had stronger words, but, until that day…I love you." Blaine breathed, staring at Kurt like that was all he needed to survive.

_But what happens when he breaks your heart?_

"I love you too." Kurt breathed, leaning forward to lightly press his lips onto Blaine's serene little smile. They both sigh with relaxed happiness when their lips touched in the gentlest kiss imaginable. It's pure love.

_But he won't._

When the kiss ends, they keep their faces close, letting the scent of each other be their new oxygen. When the tug of sleep starts to overpower them, Kurt just lets his face drop a few inches and buries it in the crook of Blaine's jaw and neck. He has his arms looped around Blaine's neck and his fingers lazily tangled in those gorgeous curls. Blaine's arms are wrapped around Kurt's waist snuggly, keeping his warm body as close as possible. Their legs are tangled in a helpless heap, to the point where you can hardly tell whose sweats clad leg is whose. They breath together, chests rising and falling together. In that bed, in that nest of blankets, it is warm; it is safe; it is content.

*~Line Break~*

Blaine and Kurt's small "vacation" of sorts was lovely while it lasted, but back in the daytime world, their friends needed help and their classes had homework and the Warbler's still had rehearsals.

It seems like both Nick and Jeff decided to call in sick for the day, which really wasn't a big surprise to Kurt. They needed the time to at least figure out to function in public…well, and probably private too. Kurt seriously doubted that bathing was high on either of their priorities lists right now.

The end of the day did have some unexpected good news, though.

"Hey, Kurt?" Blaine asked, peaking his head into Kurt's room.

"Hm?" Kurt asked, his nose still buried in his French textbook, but letting Blaine know that he had his attention.

"Gran and Gramps are in town doing some shopping and wanted to know if we'd like to get dinner before they head back."

Kurt's head sprung up excitedly, a wide smile already stretching across his face, "Absolutely! Is that even a question?!"

"Just thought I'd ask," Blaine smiled, eyes on his phone as he texted his Gran back, because Gran was cool enough to text even as an elderly woman.

"And that's why I love you," Kurt chirped, shifting from the center of the bed to the edge.

"You know I just _have _to kiss you when you say things like that, right?" Blaine teased just as he hit send and swiftly walked over to the bed and bending down to plant a kiss on Kurt's smiling mouth.

"Hey, Kurt-oh, um…sorry, I'll just…go…" Nick stuttered from where he had walked into the still open door and seen them sharing a fairly innocent kiss. He looked positively sick. His pajamas…well first off, _he was wearing pajamas in public! _Nick was one of Kurt's more fashionable friends, so seeing him walking around in pajamas in public when out of uniform was a major red flag. His normally perfect hair wasn't even close to groomed and he looked like he hadn't slept in years. But besides that, he looked miserable, especially as he witnessed the love radiating between Kurt and Blaine.

"No!" Kurt rushed out, standing up off of the bed and rushing over to Nick's side. "What's up?" he cringes internally at the casual wording of that question.

"Well…I was wondering if you had some time to talk. But if you're busy-"

"Nope, I'm free until…?" Kurt assured him, sending a raised eyebrow to Blaine; wordlessly inquiring about what time dinner was.

"7. Don't worry, it's still a quarter until 5; you have some time." Blaine smiled and stood, walking over to Kurt to give him a peck goodbye but rethought it considering their present company. He settled for a warm smile and squeezing Kurt's shoulder briefly. And with that, Kurt and Nick were left alone.

"You don't have to hide your relationship from me, you know." Nick murmured, sounding a little irritated.

"What do you mean?" Kurt decided that it wouldn't hurt to at least _try_ and play dumb.

But Nick wasn't dumb, "You know what, Kurt!" Nick snapped. "I'm not going to break because others are happy and in love around me. I'm _fine!_"

"Nick…" Kurt started out cautiously, "you're _not _fine."

"Hey, I broke up with _him, _remember!" Nick's aggravation was escalating quickly and he wasn't even attempting to cover it up. "I'm FINE!"

"So you just broke up with him out of the blue, and you're fine?" Kurt asked bitingly, starting to get a little short tempered himself. When he and Nick got along, they were nearly inseparable, because they were so similar; feeding off one another's energy. However, that worked both ways, meaning that their fights tended to escalate quickly and blow up to epic proportions.

"Yes! I'm FINE! Why don't you trust me?!"

"Maybe because I don't know who you are?! The Nick _I _know wouldn't just go and break Jeff's-"

"_SHUT UP!" _Nick suddenly screeched, clapping his hands over his ears, face red as a tomato.

"What, you can't take stand thinking about the man's whose heart you broke!? Jeff!?"

"STOP! ST-"

"No! Because if you really didn't care, you'd be able to hear his name without _begging_ me to stop! I know you didn't want to hurt him Nick, but I can't think of _any_ reason why you'd break up with him! What happened?"

"I-I," Nick tried to choke out, but his anger seemed to evaporate just as his flight instincts kicked in, "I-I have to go…" he turned to the door and pried it open.

He was half way through the door when Kurt spoke up. "Let me guess, it's complicated?"

Nick froze but quietly uttered, "Yes." Whilst shooting a little glance over his shoulder towards Kurt.

"You still love him?" Kurt pushed.

Nick just looked at Kurt a little longer before turning all the way back around and pulling the door shut behind him as he left. But that's okay; his eyes gave Kurt all the answer he needed.

*~Line Break~*

"As promised, one Blaine Anderson, in perfect condition!" Kurt announced jokingly as he and Blaine spotted Gran and Gramps waiting outside of the Mexican restaurant they had agreed to meet at for dinner that night.

"Nice work, doll, nice work," Gran smirked, pulling Kurt into a snug embrace as she swayed them back and forth gently. She finally pulled back and, still grasping both of Kurt's hands, she spread his arms out, much like the first time they had met, and examined his outfit. "You're not looking too bad either. You're button down and cardigan are a wonderful combination."

Kurt had ended up wearing a crimson red, navy blue, emerald green, and soft white plaid shirt, with a simple, yet decadent navy blue cardigan that also had large brown buttons up the front. He was wearing a broach that was an intricately carved 'K' made from wood that matched the buttons on his cardigan. He wore his signature skinny jeans in a dark wash denim, and his black Doc Martens.

"Thanks Gran. How do you feel about Blaine's jeans? I'm trying to steer him towards a slim cut instead of the baggy ones that his closet was filled with. I mean, obviously they aren't as skinny as mine, but that's only because Blaine threatened to wear crocs if I made him wear a pair of skinny jeans. I can't have my fiancé wearing crocs, Gran! No. Way."

Gran giggled in her typical school girl way and examined Blaine, much to Blaine's embarrassment. After circling Blaine a few times, she turned to Kurt with the assessment, "the fit is impeccable. They really show off his bottom."

Blaine becomes impossibly redder and lets out a startled, "Gran!" While Kurt laughs himself silly and playfully swats Blaine's ass, saying, "It really does make your _bottom _look fantastic," Kurt promptly breaks into another fit of giggles at the use of the word 'bottom'. Gran is right next to him, gripping his arm and laughing at Blaine's awkward shuffling and blood red cheeks.

"Well, I hate to burst your bubble," Gramps spoke up, "but I still think I have the most smoking bottom here." And with that, Gramps turned around and wiggled in a funny sort of dance move. Even Blaine, who was still blushing out of control and thanking the heavens that the parking lot was dark and empty, cloaking their embarrassing family antics, laughed at his grandfather's teasing.

"Oh, most definitely, hon," she said sweetly before turning back to Blaine and Kurt and winking in a completely over exaggerated way, stage whispering, "I have to say that 'cause he's my husband!"

"Lucy!" Gramps called in an adoring warning tone as he started towards the restaurant.

Once they got seated, Blaine and Kurt on one side of the booth with Gran and Gramps on the other side (although Gramps had to literally lift Gran away from Blaine and Kurt where she was trying wedge herself between the two bemused teenagers) they quickly ordered drinks and food. The service was fast and it helped that it wasn't very busy that night, seeing as it was the middle of the week as opposed to the weekend. Before they knew it, they were all devouring the various spicy Mexican dishes they had ordered, sharing off of one another's plates and talking constantly.

"So," Gramps said around a mouthful of chicken enchiladas, "any plans made for the wedding yet?"

Blaine couldn't help the grin that spread across his face at any mention of his and Kurt's impending vows. "Well, pretty much the only thing we've nailed down is that we'd like to have it the fall after graduation, so we have a little time."

"That's the only thing _you _have nailed down." Kurt corrected, smiling smugly.

"Oh, really now?" Blaine teased, quirking an eyebrow at Kurt as he nodded once in confirmation. "And what exactly do you have planned out?"

"You mean besides a dozen different floral ideas, a small list of possible locations, the business card of an excellent New York caterer who makes the best vegan pies you've ever experienced, and an entire iPod playlist dedicated to first dance songs?"

"Yes, besides that." Blaine smiled, waiting smugly for Kurt's answer.

Kurt confident demeanor actually slouched down a little into one of bashfulness. He worried his lower lip between his teeth for a minute before making a decision and whipping out his iPhone. He tapped around on the screen for a little while before almost timidly admitting, "I may have picked out a suit for you to wear." And with that, Kurt flipped the phone around so Blaine could see the picture on the screen.

Blaine actually froze and did a double take. It was definitely not what he had expected. For all of Kurt's crazy experiments with fashion, he respected the classics like a sacred temple. It was because of this, Blaine had been expecting an excellently tailored tux, traditional black, white button down underneath with a black bow tie for him and a skinny black tie for Kurt. However, the suit Blaine was currently looking at was much different. It was a beautiful dusty burgundy color. The button up shirts were a crisp white and, true to Blaine's prediction, a black bow tie for Blaine and a skinny black tie for Kurt.

"I…I love it! I-It's so _me!_" Blaine gushed. He scooted the phone across the table to show Gran and Gramps who were craning their necks trying to get a peak. Gran cooed like a dove when she saw it. Gramps smiled widely and asked what that color was. God, Blaine loved his grandparents. And Kurt. Oh, Kurt…

"It's so me, and I love it, but is it want _you _want? I can tell just by looking at it that you had me in mind." Blaine locked eyes with Kurt, making sure he told the truth.

"Blaine," Kurt sighed, closing his eyes for a second before reopening them with a small, shy smile on his rose tinted lips, "while my first instinct was to go with a classic black tux," Blaine smirked a little; yeah, he was just that good, "I saw this one and…well, I couldn't help but picture you in that suit and it just seemed…right." Kurt laughed a little, before adding on, in all sincerity, "Blaine, this is as much _your _wedding as it is mine. I want to share it _with _you."

Blaine felt that all too familiar love-struck feeling in the pit of his stomach and in the flutter of his heart.

"Plus, I look killer in burgundy," Kurt added on, smiling wickedly.

And the feeling of love only intensified with that. _That's _my _fiancé, _Blaine marveled, for not the first time.

They were gazing at one another with puppy dog eyes, completely forgetting that Gran and Gramps were across the table from them. Not like they seemed to mind at all; they actually seemed to find all of this highly amusing and highly encouraging. Just seeing the way their grandson and their soon- to-be grandson interacted made them certain that they would be happy for the rest of their days and would have a long, fulfilling marriage.

Raising up a humongous menu, Gran perched it at the end of the table, creating a shield from prying eyes and nosy strangers. She smiled at Kurt and Blaine insistently, and gestured to the "safe zone" she had created, waggling her eyebrows suggestively. Kurt giggled as Blaine blushed yet again; like he only does for his grandparents. Grabbing his collar, Kurt tugged Blaine close, giving him a tame yet full out kiss. Gran squealed in the background.

After Gramps settled the bill, the four of them all headed out to their respective cars and milled around, making small talk, all of them reluctant to part ways just yet.

"Hey, Gran?" Kurt suddenly asked, hand clasped firmly in Blaine's. "Do you think two people can just…fall out of love?"

Everyone's eyes shifted to Kurt after he asked that, all drowning in different levels of horror. "Oh, God, no, not me and Blaine!" Everyone's shoulders visibly lowered, "I was actually referring to two of our friends from school, Nick and Jeff. See, they've been together for about 3 years and then, suddenly, out of nowhere, Nick breaks up with Jeff a few days ago. I guess I was wondering, what with your successful marriage, maybe you'd have some insight."

"Well…" Gran trailed off thinking, tapping her chin with her gloved pointer finger. "Are they the kind of couple that breaks up every few months but always come back to each other? What's it call-On again, off again! Are they an On again Off again couple?"

"Nope," Blaine supplied, "when we say three years we mean three full years."

"And were there _any _signs from either that they weren't happy with the relationship anymore?" Gran questioned.

"No. They were obviously crazy about one another. In fact…" Kurt trailed off wondering if the secret still mattered or if it was moot now. He decided that if it helped them identify the problem and ultimately get Nick and Jeff back together, then it was well worth it. "…Nick actually had an engagement ring. He was planning on spending his life with Jeff."

"And Nick is the one that broke things off?" Gran asked incredulously.

Kurt nodded.

"An engagement ring?" Blaine asked, looking surprised and even more confused than he had last night when he heard about the breakup. Kurt nodded and mouthed, _I know, right? _Before turning his attention back to Gran who seemed to have reached a conclusion.

"I don't think they fell out of love. Or at least, this Nick fellow didn't. You don't buy an engagement ring and then randomly end your _three year _relationship with someone all of a sudden. Something happened. If they're really as devoted as you seem to think they are, then it wasn't another man…but…well, it sounds sort of strange, but I think someone's forcing Nick's hand here."

"Like blackmail?" Blaine asked skeptically.

"Well, yeah, that would work. Or perhaps they're making threats of some kind." Gran suggested, shrugging as though it was just an errant train of thought she had decided to follow for grins.

"No, no that makes sense," Kurt decided after turning it over several time in his brain. "Nick admitted that his reasoning was complicated and when I asked if he still loved Jeff, he didn't say anything, but, you should have seen his _eyes! _It was like a tragic romance was happening in there.

"That's still not a lot to go on," Blaine admitted, "I mean an interpretation of his eyes and one of the most generic explanations in the history of forever? Not exactly concrete."

"No, but it's the best we got." Kurt insisted.

And to this Blaine couldn't help but agree. He couldn't decide if that meant they had nothing, or if they had just found their first foot hole if fixing Nick and Jeff's relationship.

**A/N: Eh? Eh? How was it? Was it worth the wait? I hope so, because I had a blast writing this one and I think I have a little bit of an idea as to where this will lead! Oh, by the way, I also wrote a little one shot called "Feels Like the End" if you'd like to check it out. I think it's not half bad ; ) Please leave reviews or send me a PM anytime! Love you all so much!**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: So sorry it took me so long to get this chapter up! I had a hard time getting it started, but I finally, FINALLY hit my stride (thank God). I want to thank all of you who are still reading despite my erratic update schedule (or lack thereof). Also, thanks to all of you guys who are reviewing, favoriting, following or all three; it really does make this all worth it : ) Alright, so time for me to shut my yap and let you read this chapter. Things are gonna get intense guys, so hold on to your hats! Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Glee**

**Chapter 6**

"As leader of this mission-"

"Wes, you are _not _leader and this is _not _a mission." David interrupted, sitting on the floor of their room while Kurt and Blaine sat on the bed facing Wes as he paced in front of the group.

Wes seemingly decided to ignore David and just huffed out an annoyed breath. "Whatever. As _organizer _of this _meeting,_" he paused, eyebrows raised in an _are you happy now? _Sort of look, "I need to know what we have. Kurt?"

Sitting up straighter, Kurt addressed the group. "Alright, we know that about five days ago, Nick broke up with Jeff. There was no warning, no reason, no signs; nothing."

"Leading us to believe that something or someone must have made him do this." Blaine interjected.

They were all silent for a few moments, mulling over the possibility of blackmail.

Nodding, seemingly in acceptance of this theory, Wes began, "Alright, so we know what this did to Jeff, but," he paused for dramatic effect and turned to the group curiously, "has anyone seen Nick?"

"I did;" Kurt offered, "we spoke briefly."

"What did he say?" David asked, leaning his head back to make eye contact with the tall brunette.

"Not much, just that it was complicated. He seemed really torn up about it."

"Well," Wes started, using his "authoritative" voice, "I think we need to talk to Nick first before we divert directly to more, shall I say, _intricate _plans. Maybe he'll have the answers we need."

A beat of silence passed before Blaine, eyes incredibly wide and confused asked, "Why are you a Bond villain all of a sudden?"

No answer was given other than the incredibly cliché evil laugh Wes began to cackle.

*~Line Break~*

_What's the worst that could happen? _Kurt assured himself, standing outside of Nick's dorm room. _Besides a massive fight that ends with me being thrown out of a window… _After his last interaction with Nick, Kurt was somewhat afraid of the temper that he and Nick seemed to be able to set off in each other. He had to remain level headed.

He knocked lightly and waited for a good minute before knocking again. He heard a faint shuffle inside the room and what sounded like an annoyed grunt, but the door remained closed. Deciding that he would never get into the room unless he took matters into his own hands, Kurt tried the door, happy when it proved to be unlocked and twisted easily under his nervously clammy hands.

He slipped into the dark room and closed the door quietly behind him. The lights were off and the shades had been drawn to keep out pretty much all sunlight. Kurt's eyes drifted over to the bed to see a small bundle underneath the thick comforter. There were tissues scattered all around the bed like a minefield.

"Go away," came a broken voice, trying to disguise itself as petulant, from the bundle in the bed.

"Nick…" Kurt said softly, silently making his way across the room to the bed. Gingerly, he lowered himself down to sit on the edge of the bed. "Nick, no one has seen you for days. Have you even left this room?"

Nick heaved a gargantuan sigh and flopped over onto his back, not making eye contact, but it was a start.

"No," he finally sighed, rubbing the heels of his hands down over his red rimmed eyes tiredly; he looked exhausted. "I'm failing to see the point," he whispered, a humorless laugh drifting out between his lips, breathy and faint.

Kurt nodded his head silently, eyes falling to the floor. After a moment, Kurt turned his gaze on the profile of Nick who was now staring at the window as if he could actually see out of it.

"You miss him?" Kurt asked in a hushed voice. It wasn't really a question, but Kurt needed to hear Nick say it out loud, to admit to it.

Nick sniffed and smiled a heartbroken smile, his eyes finally landing on Kurt's. "More than I hope you ever have to know, Kurt."

Nodding thoughtfully, Kurt reached his hand out to Nick in invitation. It took a few seconds, but Nick opened his hand up and pried it off the edge of the blanket he had clutched just underneath his chin, letting Kurt slip his hand into his and hold on tight.

Tears began silently coursing down Nick's face; at a complete loss for words.

They stayed like that for a long time, neither willing to break the silence they had entered.

"Why, Nick? Why did you break up with Jeff?" Kurt remained quiet, not wanting to startle his friend.

"I-I," Nick began, trying to slow his breathing and collect his thoughts. Inside, Nick's brain was screaming at him to just tell Kurt; tell _someone! _But he knew that the risks were too high. If his mom ever got wind that he had told, she would have him on the next flight to Europe. He couldn't take that risk, because he at least needed to know that Jeff was okay. What if he was shipped off to some far away boarding school and then Jeff got in a car accident? He would probably never know. Or worse, he would hear the news and be too far away to do anything. Nick couldn't do that, he had to _be _here…even if that meant breaking Jeff's heart and his own. It was the best option he had.

Clearing his voice, he tried again, aiming for truthfulness but not giving too much away. "I needed to keep him safe." He ended up whispering.

Kurt quirked a brow softly at this. "But he wants t-"

"Kurt," Nick hurriedly said, giving the countertenor's hand a quick squeeze to gain his attention, "can we please not talk about it? Please, just…look, I have my reasons."

Kurt nodded thoughtfully. "But you can't tell me them?"

"No." Nick whispered, closing his eyes like the world hurt his eyes too much. "I'm sorry."

Kurt nodded yet again, but otherwise stayed perfectly still. He remained perched on the edge of the bed, gripping Nick's hand like a vice until the brunette finally drifted off to sleep.

*~Line Break~*

"It _has _to be blackmail!" Kurt declared, busy pacing the room in front of David and Wes.

It had started out amusing; Kurt had been rambling on and on in nonsensical patterns about bits and pieces of evidence he had collected. Wes had even joined in, although instead of helping, he had taken advantage of Kurt's obviously distressed and scatterbrained state to formulate a scenario in which Nick was in talks with the Russian mob and needed to break up with Jeff to keep the family bloodline untainted with any 'un-Russian' blood. After smacking Wes in the back of the head, David had not so subtly reminded his friend that 1. Nick wasn't Russian, 2. Un-Russian was most definitely not a word and 3. He wasn't helping.

Quieting down begrudgingly, Wes had sobered up enough to see why David hadn't been so amused with his plan. Kurt was taking this whole breakup extremely hard, probably the hardest out of all of Niff's friends. Wes and David weren't exactly sure why, but it was concerning to see Kurt on the verge of tears, pacing frantically and running his hands through his normally immaculate hair.

The door opened to reveal a smiling Blaine whose grin faltered some when his eyes took in Wes and David's identical looks of worry. Seeing those looks directed at his panicking fiancé, the smile slipped off of Blaine's face entirely and replaced with a look of gentle decision.

"Blaine! Finally!" Kurt enthused, bounding over to his favorite Warbler. Instead of a hug or kiss though, he immediately launched into yet another rendition of his latest conversation with Nick.

Blaine smiled softly at Kurt and gently took his hand in his. Wordlessly, he nodded at Wes and David and led Kurt out of the room and turned in the direction of his own room.

Kurt hardly even seemed to notice as he continued to stumble over his own words, trying to keep up with all of his racing thoughts. "He freaking admitted to missing Jeff! I mean, that's something, right?! And, so, sure, he wouldn't tell me _what _his reason was, but he said that it was to keep Jeff safe,"

Blaine nodded politely, calmly leading Kurt into his room and shutting his door quietly.

"You don't just break up with someone and miss them _that _much if you don't still love them, I mean, right?! You should have seen his room it was dark and co-mfffph."

Kurt's back roughly hit the door only to find his front completely covered by Blaine's body. The air rushed out of his lungs but before he could even think about catching it, his mouth was captured in a wild, sloppy kiss, making his head swim.

"Kurt, it's going to be okay," Blaine panted, eyes still closed and his breath still flowing out over Kurt's lips. "We're going to have both of our friends happy and back together soon enough." He kissed Kurt hard and deep, pulling a guttural groan from deep inside Kurt's throat. "And," he paused, pulling back to fix Kurt with a pupil blown look. His hands began sliding down Kurt's back, slowly, tantalizingly, "their breakup isn't an omen that we're doomed to fail. So stop." His hands reached Kurt's ass and squeezed, "worrying." He pulled Kurt forward fully against him; their hard-ons rubbing against each other with the most wonderful friction. "I love you and I'm not going anywhere."

The distance between them disappeared as Kurt slammed into Blaine, sending them stumbling across the room in the general direction of the bed.

Their kisses became more and more passionate, moans and grunts filling the room. Somehow, they ended up just to the right of the bed, with Blaine pressed against the desk. Swiftly, shocking Blaine, he had hoisted Blaine up to sit on the desk, but quickly found that there was far too much distance in this position. To remedy that, Kurt swiftly shoved everything off of the desk in one fluid sweep of the hand and moved Blaine to where he was lying down on his back fully on the desk, feet dangling off of the edge. Kurt pulled himself up on the desk and sat himself down on top of his squirming fiancés hips.

Blaine's shirt was just a huge nuisance, Kurt decided as he slowly, teasingly, undid each and every button.

"Kurt," Blaine growled, desire making his eyes nearly black.

"What?" Kurt asked sweetly, finally opening Blaine's shirt slowly and letting his thumbs brush over Blaine's nipples slowly, eliciting a groan of pure want from the shorter man.

"My turn," Blaine said in a husky voice. He sat up, Kurt still straddling his lap and rocking lightly with the most innocent expression that was only marred by the little smirk on Kurt's lips, driving Blaine completely mad. Blaine was done with the teasing. Using both of his hands, he cleanly ripped Kurt's shirt in half, buttons flying everywhere. Throwing the tatters of Kurt's button down haphazardly behind him, Blaine's eyes never left Kurt. Hands holding Kurt in place, Blaine slid himself to the edge of the desk until he was seated comfortably, the edge of the table right at the bend of his knees.

"No more teasing Kurt," Blaine growled, thrusting his hips up sharply, causing the slender brunette to gasp and instinctually grind his own hips downward. "Put your hands on me. Now." He commanded.

The lust shining sultry and sensual in Blaine's hazel eyes on top of his throaty voice expressing words of wanton desire had Kurt attacking Blaine's mouth again, tongues tangled in seconds flat. Their rocking motions picked up speed and force, as their breathing picked up as well, becoming haggard and erratic.

Blaine kept his hands on Kurt's back so he wouldn't fall. His nails digging into the soft porcelain flesh as they both reached their climaxes at the same time.

When their panting had subsided some, Blaine stood up on wobbly legs, still holding Kurt to him and tossed their bodies unceremoniously on the bed.

When they had finally made their way under the covers and were wrapped in each other, Kurt let his voice ring out softly. "Thank you."

"It just hurts to see you so stressed out over nothing, baby." Blaine answered, his eyelashes tickling Kurt's neck as his eyes fluttered open.

"I'm sorry, I just…" Kurt sighed, trying to sort through the multitude of thoughts running through his mind. "I don't know, I guess I keep seeing those two absolutely heartbroken and…I keep picturing that it's _us _instead. That it could happen to us. A-And maybe that's selfish, making it about me and you, but I can't help it."

Blaine listened patiently, stroking the hair over Kurt's ear and keeping eye contact.

"But, the biggest thing that bothers me is just…seeing our _friends _in so much pain; it kills me, Blaine."

It was silent for a long time after that. Both eventually closed their eyes and nestled into each other. But just as they were about to drift off into a peaceful, much needed slumber, Blaine murmured something unintelligible into Kurt's neck.

"What was that?" Kurt giggled lazily; carding his fingers through Blaine's disheveled hair.

"I'm going to tell my parents about you and I." he restated, eyes blearily opening as he detached his face from Kurt's warm throat.

"Wha-really?" Kurt gasped, not entirely sure that he had heard Blaine correctly.

"Yes." He smiled, shifting so he was hovering over Kurt, a loving look filling his hazel eyes. "I'm not ashamed of you Kurt. I want them to know that I found the perfect man and that I'm engaged to him."

"You're engaged to Ryan Gosling?! Blaine, how could you keep this from me?! More importantly, why haven't you given me his autograph yet?!" Kurt acted shocked, blue eyes wide and hand going to his heart.

"Oh hush, you," Blaine giggled, slapping his fiancé's shoulder playfully and leaning down further to whisper, "And no, I found someone much better than -"

"As if that's possible."

"_Kurt," _Blaine warned, giving him a teasing scold, "I'm trying to be romantic here and you're totally ruining it; How am I supposed to proclaim my undying love to you when you keep interrupting with wisecracks?"

"You just have to look in my eyes;" Kurt whispered, craning his neck forward as Blaine leaned down some, "everything I need to know is there."

Blaine chuckled, whispering against Kurt's lips as they brushed teasingly against one another, "There you go stealing my thunder."

Kurt just pressed his smiling lips against Blaine's in a gentle, simple kiss.

Blaine tried to roll off of Kurt and snuggle back into his side but Kurt's strong arms kept him anchored on top of his chest, to which he happily obliged with no fight at all.

Sleep was close again, when Blaine whispered, "I found you."

"Hm?" Kurt hummed rather than spoke; being verbal just sounded so _hard _to his sleep addled mind.

"I found the perfect man whom I'm now engaged to; I found you." He smiled into Kurt's collar bone. "There, now I've finished."

Kurt chuckled, more asleep than awake now, only able to say, "Oh how you make me swoon, Blaine Anderson." Before sleep overtook them both.

*~Line Break~*

"Are you sure you don't want to wait for me to get back?"

Kurt and Blaine were out in the parking lot that Friday afternoon, Blaine with overnight bag in hand as he readied himself to head home for the weekend and 'drop the bomb' as David had called it.

"No, no, we'll be fine," Kurt assured Blaine, smoothing the lapels that didn't need smoothing on the Dalton uniform Blaine had yet to change out of. "I'm trying my best to stay out of it anyways."

Wes, tired of sitting on the sidelines and aching to just _do _something to help Nick and Jeff's fiasco, had devised a meeting between the two. Naturally, in true Wes fashion, this meeting consisted of tricking Nick into a room and tricking Jeff into that same room and then locking the door until they either fixed things, tore one anther apart limb from limb, or melted into weeping puddles on the floor. Kurt was insistent that this method would have disastrous effects, but Wes was resolute in his plan, sticking to it like glue.

"Okay." Blaine sighed, looking at his car forlornly, "I guess I should get going then."

"Blaine," Kurt said firmly, grabbing the raven haired Warbler's face between his palms and turning it to face him, "you don't _have _to do this. Or you could wait for a weekend when I could come with you-"

"Springing a fiancé on them that they can pretend doesn't even exist is going to be bad enough; a fiancé that they have to look in the eye and ask to pass the salt would probably be too much for their ignorant minds to handle." Blaine spat the last part out with more venom than he had intended, not necessarily feeling very bad about it. "But I _want _to do this. That way, their disapproval will be a distant memory when we get married."

Kurt smiled at the slightly shorter man, very proud of the maturity he was showing. "And when we are in our wedded bliss their prejudices won't matter anymore than they do now." Kurt leaned down to place a slow, deep kiss on Blaine's waiting lips.

"Welp," Blaine said, popping the 'p' as they broke apart, "I guess I should get on the road."

"Blaine, they live 20 minutes away; it's not exactly a road trip." Kurt deadpanned.

"Sure, but I have to use roads to get there." He smiled a cheeky smile that earned him a playful smack on the shoulder. He just smiled wider and got into the driver's seat of his car, shutting the door and lowering the window. He was about to utter his goodbye when Kurt, who had taken to worrying his bottom lip, put up a hand like a stop sign.

"Wait. Can you hold on like, two minutes?"

"Sure," Blaine nodded, "anything to keep me here a little bit longer."

"Okay, I'll be right back." Kurt said with wide eyes to emphasize his point. He turned back towards the dorms and left at a run.

Not even two minutes later, Kurt came jogging back into the parking lot. Blaine couldn't help but notice how perfectly Kurt's body was built for running. His long legs flicked out, covering an incredible amount of ground even when he was just jogging. Blaine couldn't even imagine how fast Kurt would be in a sprint.

"Have you ever considered joining the track team?" Blaine asked seriously when Kurt came bounding up to the car, not even breathing that hard.

Kurt quirked an eyebrow as if to say, _really? _

"Okay, I know, sports and skin care don't exactly go hand in hand, but you should look into it; you could be really good."

Kurt actually pondered it for a second before thoughtfully muttering, "It _would _keep me in phenomenal shape…hmmm, I don't know, I'll think about it." He shrugged his shoulder and then held his fist out a tad nervously.

"I know you're not asking me for a fist bump." Blaine teased, staring at Kurt's curled fingers with curiosity.

"Absolutely not." Kurt scoffed as if that were some barbaric idea. "But, I uh…well, I sort of have something for you…" Kurt said nervously, looking down at his own fist. "I, well, you don't have to take it now or at all really, I just wanted you to have it this weekend in case you start to feel down or sad about whatever your parents say or do."

And with that, he opened his fist to reveal an engagement ring sitting in his palm, sparkling in the afternoon sun. It was white gold, just like Kurt's, because, God forbid that he clash with his fiancé. The center housed a circular diamond that laid flat with the rest of the surrounding metal, not sticking out or getting in the way. On each side of the center diamond was a diamond around half the size and on the outer edge of each one of _those_ was a tiny diamond that glittered like sparkling sand.

"_Kurt," _Blaine breathed, his hand flying to his heart as he felt it fluttering in his chest. "I-It's…_perfect_. It's beautiful, it's wonderful, it's…_fabulous."_

"Honey, your stereotype is showing," Kurt teased.

Gently, he took Blaine's hand in his and slid the ring into place. "Now, when we _can't _be together, or when your parents get bad," Kurt smiled up at Blaine through his lashes, still holding his hand and repeating the words that Blaine had said to him when he had done this same act of putting the ring on for the first time; well with some modifications of course. "you can feel this weight on your hand and remember that I promised forever," gently, he brought Blaine's hand up to his lips and kissed it just like a prince would in an old Disney movie, "and I meant it."

Blaine felt his lips quivering and didn't even feel embarrassed when a few tears slipped down his cheek. He was really going to marry this man. This charming, funny, sweet, gorgeous man.

"Kurt," Blaine whispered again, leaning through the window to kiss him lovingly, his newly engagement rind clad hand gently cupping the side of Kurt's face. "I love you so much, baby, so much I just-just…can't hardly breathe some times." He hiccupped a little laugh at his cheesy words, but meant them all the same.

"I love you too, Blaine." Kurt smiled, caressing his cheeks before leaning away and slapping a slightly watery smile on his lips. "Now go give your parents a heart attack."

Blaine chuckled and nodded, starting the engine of his car. "I'll text you when I get there."

"You better. And call me after you've told them; tell me how it goes." Kurt waved.

"Okay. I'll give you the play by play."

"Can't wait." Kurt smiled, "Love you."

"Love you." Blaine replied, smiling brightly as he pulled out of his spot and left the parking lot.

*~Line Break~*

_Made it back safe and sound. B xoxo_

Kurt smiled at the text he received about a half hour later and quickly tapped out his reply. His night passed quietly, catching up on homework and reading his much neglected books. He had dinner with the guys that night, sans Nick of course, as he had yet to venture out of his room for more than classes. As Kurt lay in bed later that night, he sent Blaine their customary good night text and waited for his phone to chime. Perhaps it was cheesy, but even when they were both at Dalton, tucked away in their own beds at the end of each day, they still texted each other goodnight, without fail. So, after ten minutes of waiting for a reply that hadn't come, Kurt began to feel a little uneasy. _He probably doesn't want his parents to see him texting the fiancé that they undoubtedly don't approve of, _Kurt reasoned. With the feeling of tension pulling his nerves tight, Kurt made himself relax and sink into his bed for a less than restful night's sleep.

The next morning, there was still no reply, making Kurt's stomach drop with concern. He didn't like this; he didn't like this one bit. Kurt knew about Blaine's father's abusive side. From what Blaine had told him, his father had never flat out beaten him, but a slap across the face wasn't exactly unheard of.

Not wanting to jump to conclusions, Kurt made himself shower and pick out an outfit-not nearly as eager as he normally was to dress in his own clothes- before giving Blaine a call. No answer. It just went straight to voicemail.

Frowning, Kurt slumped himself down in a chair to stare at the table instead of eat his breakfast.

"You okay, Kurt?" David asked, brow creased as he shoved an entire pancake into his mouth.

"Yeah, well…no," he sighed, rubbing his eyes tiredly, "I can't get ahold of Blaine. He isn't responding to my texts and when I tried to call him it just went straight to voicemail."

Speaking tentatively, still missing that spark since Nick broke things off, Jeff cautiously asked, "Did you two have a fight?"

"No." Kurt shook his head.

"His parents probably just made him turn off his phone or something. They've done it before; if he does something that makes them mad." Wes muttered around his sausage filled mouth, shrugging his shoulders casually. "No need to worry, Kurt. Lover boy's probably just sitting in his room counting the minutes until he can stare into your eyes again."

Kurt laughed halfheartedly, trying to roll the tension off of his shoulders. "Yeah, you're probably right…" taking a deep breath and narrowing his eyes, he edged forward, "it's just…well, Blaine was going to tell his parents about our engagement this weekend."

All eyes zeroed in on him and widened; stopping mid-chew.

"I'm just afraid that his parents didn't take it well and, well, you know how his dad can get."

"It'll be okay, Kurt," Jeff soothed, patting the countertenor's shoulder reassuringly, "just give it a little time."

*~Line Break~*

By the end of the day, Kurt had decided that that was _more _than enough time. After his dozen phone calls and handfuls of texts didn't get any response, he decided that it couldn't hurt to swing by the Anderson's and just take a _look _at the place, right? Possibly pull a cheesy teen romance movie move and throw stones at Blaine's window until he opened it and smiled down at him.

So maybe he was overreacting some, but he would rather _over_react than _under_react. He just needed to know that Blaine was safe. It would also help to ease his mind if he knew why Blaine hadn't been responding.

Even though Kurt had never been to Blaine's house, he had the address in case of emergency. Putting it into his GPS he drove the small distance across town to the Anderson's residence. It was in a heavily tree suburb that nearly created a canopy over the streets. The streets were lined with old fashioned red brick sidewalks and electric street lamps that were styled to look like the old gas ones. Each house had either a circular drive or a long drive way that led to a house set back away from the road. Despite his nerves, Kurt couldn't help but drive slowly as he admired the architecture that screamed of old money. Finally, his GPS told him to turn right into a long driveway that led to a house that appeared to be made of sand colored limestone bricks. The long drive transformed into a large circular drive with a fountain in the middle of the circle. A freaking _fountain!_

Kurt parked off to the side, breathing a sigh of relief when he didn't see any cars parked in the drive besides Blaine's.

Not really sure what his plan was now, Kurt slowly exited his car and just listened. It was completely silent.

As quietly as possible, Kurt crept up to the front door and nervously peered in through the slim windows that were on either side of the enormous black front door.

He saw nothing. And he meant _nothing. _All the furniture was bare, and it even looked as though some pieces were missing or had been moved, judging by the fading in the paint on the walls.

An eerie feeling began to make the hairs rise on the back of his neck. Not even caring if anyone saw, Kurt abandoned being sneaky and stumbled over to the large bay window to his right. The curtains had mercifully been removed, leaving Kurt with a clear view of what he assumed was one of their undoubtedly multiple living rooms or parlors or sitting rooms or whatever the hell people of the Anderson's social standing called them. All of the furniture was covered in plastic wrap to keep the dust from accumulating directly on the fabric. The mantle of the marble fireplace held nothing; no candles, pictures, certificates-nothing. The bookcases also stood bear, without a single book. There were a few cardboard moving boxes stacked in the far corner near a doorway.

Kurt's stomach dropped yet again as he hurriedly stumbled over to the front door again and triple checked that this address was the correct house number. It was.

Kurt felt his knees begin to shake as he ran back to his car, wrenching the door open and throwing himself into the driver's seat as tears began to pour down his face as though his tear ducts were faucets.

They were gone. No trace, no clues, nothing. They were gone.

*~Line Break~*

"Blaine's missing!" Kurt cried as he ripped the door to Wes and David's room out of his way and slammed it a little too forcefully behind him.

David and Wes, along with Jeff had been watching a movie and munching on popcorn. However, at Kurt's sudden entrance and exclamation, the popcorn was now scattered to the far corners of the room and their attention was no longer on the movie.

"What do you mean Blaine's missing?" Wes asked, standing up and taking a few steps towards Kurt who was pacing the length of the room.

"I-I went to his house, j-just to s-see if he was alright, and-and, there's nothing _there, _Wes! Everything has been boxed up or moved. The house is empty, Wes and no one was there!"

"Kurt, calm down," Wes soothed, placing a gentle hand on Kurt's shoulder and effectively putting an end to the crying boy's pacing. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm fucking sure!" Kurt bit back before burying his head in his hands and letting out a sob that could break glass. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just...just _don't know where he is!_"

"It's okay, Kurt, I get it," Wes assured him, moving to wrap the shaking man in his arms and letting him cry into his shoulder.

"Listen, Kurt," David piped up, standing up to move next to Kurt and Wes, "Wes and I will go around campus and see if any of the Warblers have heard from him this weekend, okay? See if we can figure anything out."

"T-Thank you." Kurt sighed, releasing Wes only to be pulled into Jeff's arms. "I'll stay here with you, Kurt. I get it, you know." And Kurt realized that, out of all of them, Jeff really _did _understand the best. He too had lost his beloved. Under much different circumstances, but lost him none the less.

The room was silent besides Kurt's cries after Wes and David left to canvas the campus. Jeff sat with his arm around Kurt's shoulders, letting him cry into his sweater clad shoulder.

"I'm so sorry you had to go through this, Jeff." Kurt whispered. Until now, he hadn't really understood just how much this would hurt, but now…well now he wished that he had never had to understand how much it hurt.

"It's worse for you Kurt," Jeff said softly, eyes downcast, "Blaine didn't leave you voluntarily. It must hurt more knowing that it's hurting him too."

Trying not to think of Blaine in pain, Kurt focused on the falsities of Jeff's words. "Jeff, you know that Nick still loves you." He assured the tall brunette, "You know it wasn't voluntary, right?"

Jeff just huffed a humorless laugh. "Yeah, well…he hasn't come back yet, so…"

Kurt just slid his own arm around Jeff's shoulders, mirroring his hold on Kurt and gave his shoulder a squeeze.

Nearly half an hour later, Wes and David came back to the door, sad looks on their faces that immediately make Kurt's heart stop.

"No one has seen or heard from him since class on Friday." David whispered, looking at Kurt with large sad eyes. "I'm sorry, Kurt."

Just as his sniffles began to bubble over into tears again, the door slammed open to reveal a panic-stricken Nick.

Jeff was on his feet in an instant, as if he were standing at attention or something. He remained silent as his eyes locked with Nick's, flashes of pain shooting through both of them.

It only lasted a second though as Nick shook his head and turned his gaze towards Kurt. "Kurt, I heard what happened," he rushed out, closing the door behind him and taking a few steps forward. "And I think I know what happened."

All eyes turned to Nick, who seemed to shrink in on himself slightly; probably because one of those pairs of eyes belonged to Jeff.

Without waiting for any kind of preamble or introduction, Nick dived right in. "My mom she…s-she threatened that if I wasn't…_cured, _she would send me to a boarding school overseas; a boarding school that offered no outside contact." He couldn't stop his gaze from moving over to Jeff, who was now standing stalk still with eyes taking up most of his face. Nick turned back to the group, unable to bear the heartbroken look on Jeff's face, especially knowing that he had put it there. "She's paid off some of the teachers here apparently to keep tabs on me so I…I brokeupwithJeff so the teachers wouldn't have anything to report," He took a deep steadying breath, and forced himself to keep his eyes off of Jeff's shocked expression.

"I…I'm so sorry, Nick." Kurt sympathized, heart hurting even worse now. "But what does this have to do with Blaine?"

"I think my mom used those same teachers to keep tabs on Blaine too. Our parents have been friends since I can remember. Well, not friends, really, but they run in the same social circles. I think my mom told Blaine's parents about his relationship with you, Kurt, knowing that they wouldn't be happy. She probably played up some boarding school in Europe about how it would straighten him up or some bull shit. She sent it as a warning to me, Kurt; a warning that she wasn't kidding when she told me she would do it. I'm so, so sorry, Kurt. I'm so sorry, it's all my fault."

"Nick," Kurt said sternly, gripping his shoulders firmly and forcing him to make eye contact, "This is _not _your fault."

"It isn't your fault," Jeff whispered from across the room, eyes sheepishly peering at Nick with so much hope it was almost ridiculous.

"That seems like a lot of trouble to go through to just send a warning; especially when you didn't give her any reason to think that the threats weren't working." Wes puzzled aloud, finally speaking up.

"Wait!" David yelped, an idea hitting him suddenly. "Blaine's dad is a lawyer, right?" Everyone bobbed their heads. "Maybe Nick's mom thought that sharing this 'intel' would gain her some brownie points?" he lifted a single eyebrow, looking around to see if anyone caught where he was going.

"Because what she's doing _can't _be legal; it's bribery." Kurt whispered, finally piecing together the whole picture in his head.

"She's making allies." David confirmed, snapping his fingers to finalize his point.

"All I know is that, if I'm right, Blaine's on his way out of the country." Nick spoke intensely, leveling a look at every boy in the room, making sure that the gravity of the situation had sunk in fully. "We have a window and well…" Having had enough of these cryptic games, Nick got straight to the point.

"We don't have much time."

**A/N: Drama, angst, some humor, fluff, a little bit of sorta smut! I like to think that this chapter had it all! But it doesn't matter what I think, what do you think? Please leave a review or send me a PM! Love you!**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Hey everybody! Thanks to all of you who are still reading, favoriting, following and reviewing; you're totally awesome (Woo! Starkid!) Alright, so I hope this chapter is good, I didn't have a chance to go through and read it straight through or proof read it, so I'm sorry if it's a bit of a mess! Regardless, I hope you enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Glee**

**Chapter 7**

Kurt clutched his phone tightly as it rang. He was pacing around Wes and David's room still. He was eternally grateful to them when they offered to let him crash on their sofa for the night; he most definitely didn't want to be alone right now.

"Hello?" A warm, hopeful voice answered.

"Hey Gran, it's Kurt."

"Oh hello, doll!" She chirped his nickname happily. "And to what do I owe this pleasure?"

"Uh have you-have you seen Blaine at all this weekend?" He managed to keep his voice even until he hit Blaine's name.

"…No…should I have?" Gran asked cautiously. A hint of worry was beginning to creep into her heart. "Kurt, what's going on?"

With Gran's words, Kurt's last stitch of hope was torn from his heart and a broken sob erupted from him abruptly. He knew that Gran and Gramps wouldn't have had Blaine, but God, he hadn't been able to keep his hopes from building up the idea in his head.

"Kurt? Doll, what's wrong?"

Kurt took a shaky breath in a futile attempt to calm himself. "B-Blaine is missing."

He heard a sharp intake of breath from down the line. "What…missing? Are you-where…" she stuttered to a stop and seemed to be deep breathing just as Kurt was.

"We think that Blaine's parents took him. It's…well, it's a theory at best, but it's all we have."

"Who's we?" Gran questioned, a shuffling coming from her side of the line.

"Nick, Jeff, Wes and David." Kurt explained. He knew that Gran had heard Blaine talk about them enough to know that they were trusted friends of theirs.

"Oh." Was all the answer he got. It was silent for a moment or two as the shuffling increased on Gran's end. She took yet another deep breath before saying, "Alright, well, first things first: I'm coming to get you."

Kurt hurriedly assured her that wasn't necessary, saying that he had school on Monday, only to be shot down immediately. "Kurt, you and I both know that you won't be able to concentrate on your studies until we find Blaine." To this, Kurt had no argument.

"You're going to stay with Gramps and me and you're going to fill us in on this theory you mentioned."

"Okay." Kurt agreed quietly, already heading back to his room to pack a bag.

"Kurt?" Gran said sternly to gain the boy's attention. "We're going to get him back."

Kurt felt tears building up to dangerous levels in his eyes again and bit down hard on his bottom lip to keep in his cry. He was reminded of the time he had said those exact same words to Jeff right after his breakup with Nick. When he had said them, he had meant them with every fiber of his being; he had believed them. Now, the words sounded like a hollow promise; one that could so easily be broken. They were suddenly up against so much more than an empty threat made by a mother. Well, that empty threat had turned into so much more now. Now, it had been spurred to action and Kurt was afraid that he wouldn't be able to fight it. But, hell, he would die trying. He nodded slowly before he realized that Gran couldn't see him. "Okay."

*~Line Break~*

By the time Kurt and Gran finally flicked on the lights in Gran's kitchen, it was the middle of the night-well, early Sunday morning really. Since neither of them especially felt like sleeping, Gran made coffee for herself and Kurt. Soon enough, Gramps was coming downstairs, a little sleep rumpled but wanting to help, and poured himself his own mug of coffee.

Kurt, still white as a sheet and cold even in the warmth of the glowing kitchen, was able to push through the story without a single tear. He suspected that he was finally all cried out. For now, at least.

Gran took a deep breath before summarizing the theory in her own words to make sure she had everything straight."Alright, so you're friend…Nick was it?" Kurt nodded. "He broke up with Jeff because his mom threatened to send him to a boarding school in Europe if she found out he wasn't cured."

Kurt nodded again, adding, "Yes. She's a huge homophobe who believes that being gay is a disease or a choice or something."

Gramps snorted with disgust as he took a healthy sip of his coffee before getting up to refill everyone's mugs.

Gran nodded and continued on. "She's keeping tabs on Nick by paying off teachers. Do we know who these teachers are?" She suddenly thought to ask.

Kurt shook his head dismally. "Nope, we don't know how many or who."

Gran nodded again, looking thoughtful. "Anyways, to make sure that Nick knew she wasn't just bluffing, she used her little lackeys to spy on Blaine and you. She took the news of your relationship to his parents, knowing that they would act like they did."

"Right," Kurt responded. "We also think that she's using Blaine's dad's position as a lawyer to her benefit. In exchange for keeping tabs on Blaine, she'll use his services in case she's ever caught bribing the teachers."

It was quiet in the kitchen as they all waited for the information to sink in fully.

"Well, I think it's a good theory." Gramps declared. "Now, what are we going to do about it?"

Gran stood up and began picking up all of the cups. She took them to the kitchen sink and rinsed them all out before turning around while drying her hands on a dish towel. "First off, we all need to grab at least a couple hours of sleep." She shot a glance at Kurt whose eyes were still red and puffy. "Or at least try to." She amended. "Then, tomorrow, we'll check their lake houses, see if perhaps they've holed themselves up in one of them."

"Houses? As in more than one?" Kurt asked dumbfounded. Of course he knew that Blaine's parents had money, I mean, his dad was one of the top lawyers in all of Ohio, that certainly had its monetary benefits. But he had never heard of any lake houses before.

"Yes, they have two others." Gran answered. "They're scattered around at little private lakes around the state."

"Around the state!?" Kurt panicked instantly; they didn't have that kind of time! "Gran, that could take _days! _They could be gone by then!" Kurt could hardly keep his breathing under control when a thought struck him. "Wait! What if you, Gramps and I check one and then we can have the guys check the other two?" He looked hopefully at Gran's face.

She contemplated it for what had to be a solid minute before nodding cautiously. "Well, it would lighten the load and we would get done a lot faster." She nodded her head in approval but quickly added, "But you are to tell them that they can't confront them if they do find them." She looked down with a ghost of old sadness drifting into her eyes. "We all know how Blaine's father can be…" she whispered. And with that, she called a soft goodnight and ascended the stairs to her room.

When a throat clearing sounded behind him, Kurt spun around to find the normally quieter half of the grandparents still standing there. He looked like he was going to speak, but instead, his neck went limp and his head dropped down, almost banging his chin into his chest. He shuffled over to the table and plopped down tiredly into one of the chairs. Kurt, not knowing what else to do, sat down next to him and waited in silence.

"Neil was always such a serious child growing up." He began softly, speaking of Blaine's father. "He wasn't unkind, he was just…I don't know, we used to call it maturity back then, but now? Now, I think it was a sign or something. A sign when he didn't tolerate nonsense, when he didn't tolerate childish games, when he didn't tolerate foolishness. Never did we once think that his intolerance would become so-so _hateful." _Gramps looked exhausted as he talked. He rubbed a hand down his face and studied the scratched wooden tabletop beneath his fingers. "And then he got married and I remember being surprised, on account of the fact that Neil never really liked _anyone_. But then I met her and I understood. I understood that she was from a wealthy family and she was respectable, polite and stern. No nonsense or foolishness-just like Neil." He shook his head lightly; expressing his concern. "Lucy and I had always told him to marry for love, but he got this silly notion that he had to keep up appearances or something. We were lucky to be blessed enough to not really worry about finances; me being a lawyer and all. But see, I was a lawyer to help people; Neil is a lawyer to make money. There is a big difference, Kurt, believe me."

Kurt, who had been unmoving up until now, nodded his head and remained silent. He knew the story wasn't over yet.

"And then they had this beautiful baby boy with the biggest, bluest eyes you've ever seen. It was Cooper." Gramps turned his eyes on Kurt to share a smile with him. "He was always very precocious and he certainly liked the limelight. Gran used to call him a flirt." Gramps chuckled.

"That old Anderson charm." Kurt smirked.

"Damn straight." Gramps chuckled and shot a wink in Kurt's direction. Kurt couldn't help but smile at that.

Gramps smile slowly dimmed a little. "Cooper was a great kid. A really good boy. But, he inherited his father's competitive nature and his arrogance. Those can be dangerous traits to have, Kurt. The difference between Cooper and his father is that Coop has love in his heart. I'm afraid his father does not." Gramps smile was now completely gone again.

Until he spoke again, and that little smile reached all the way up to his eyes. "Well, anyways, years later, long after Gran and I had thought we would have one grandchild, came a second." His eyes were practically shining now. "And _this_ one had the biggest, hazelest eyes you've ever seen." He looked at Kurt with a knowing smile and saw the pale boy blush lightly at even the mention of Blaine.

"And he…well he was _nothing _like his parents. Sure, he got the charm and the poise, but he was so filled with love from day one, it was astounding." He smiled, obviously far away, lost in his memories. "Lucy and I instantly took to him. It's not that we love him anymore than we love Cooper, it's just that we understand him better. Blaine responded to the love we offered and Cooper just wanted attention, not love." Gramps fingers began to tremble slightly as he dusted the nonexistent dust off of the table. Even though Kurt couldn't meet his eyes, he could see the pain beginning to settle into Gramps as the muscles in his shoulders and neck began to tense. "It seemed like the older Blaine got, the more loving her got. He never let his parents get him down. We had him over as much as we could and then it just…_stopped_ when he was fourteen." He took a deep shuddering breath and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. "After months of not hearing from him or seeing him, Lucy and I decided that it was perhaps a teenager thing. You know, hanging out with your grandparents isn't the coolest thing in the world. But…I will never forget the night he showed up on our doorstep covered in bruises and bleeding from his lip." It was quiet for a long moment, neither of them daring to move. Tears slipped wordlessly down Gramps face as he saw that visual all over again. Kurt was crying just imagining it; he didn't think he would be able to handle it if it were right in front of him. _God, I hope he's safe, _Kurt prayed silently to the God he didn't believe in.

"He had taken the bus all the way to our house like that. His eyes were so sad and lost, like he just couldn't understand why it had happened. We brought him inside and cleaned him up and got him some tea and, after much prodding and reassurance, he told us that his-his…_father _had done it to him because he was gay. Had _been _hitting him since he had come out a few months ago. And then…he just looked at us like he was expecting us to hit him for admitting to liking boys." Gramps sniffed loudly, heartbreaking saturating every word that left his mouth. "But, how could I hit, or even _hate _someone who was so filled with love? Why did it matter _who _he shared that love with?"

Kurt placed a gentle hand on Gramps back and soothing reassured, "You're a good man, Gramps. If the world had more men like you, it would be better off." He smiled through his own tears as his words brought a smile to the old man's face.

"So, after that, we tried to get Blaine to live with us, but he didn't want to make his parents angry by choosing us over them. So he went back. But then, the attack happened at his school and his parents placed him in Dalton, complaining the whole time. It was then that they contacted us. They said that if we still wanted him, we could have him; they were done. So…" Gramps trailed off, like he was trying to steal himself away. "His parents disowned him and we adopted him." He took another deep breath. "Blaine doesn't know."

Kurt sat silently for a while, trying to take it all in. His parents didn't _want _him? How could anyone not want Blaine? Perhaps he was bias, but Kurt hadn't met many people who flat out didn't at least _like _Blaine.

"Wait, then why don't we call the police?" Kurt suddenly wondered; a bubble of hope blooming in his stomach. The police would be able to find Blaine in no time. "This is technically kidnapping, right? _You're_ his legal guardians and Blaine's still seventeen- a minor."

Gramps was already shaking his head. "Neil is a good lawyer. One of the ways you become a good lawyer, is to make friends, or in Neil's case, make allies. I wouldn't doubt he has a judge or two in his pocket along with a few police officers. You know, someone willing to say that so-and-so _wasn't _driving drunk when they slammed into that minivan and killed a child; they were under 'emotional distress' or something. By telling the police, we run the risk of alerting one of Neil's allies and that will only tip them off that we're looking for Blaine. They'll leave the country in the blink of an eye, if that _is _indeed their plan."

Kurt nodded mutely, not altogether shocked when his hope panned out to be nothing.

"Kurt," Gramps choked out, looking up to find Kurt's blue eyes staring back. "I am so sorry that my son has done this to Blaine. I am so sorry that it's my son causing you so much pain."

Instantly, Kurt was resting his hand on Gramps shoulder again, giving it what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze. "It isn't your fault, Gramps." He whispered. "It's not."

After a few more minutes, Gramps dried his tears and the two of them bid each other a goodnight before they headed upstairs. It was going to be a long day.

*~Line Break~*

Wes, David, Nick and Jeff all got to the house bright and early, eager to start the search as soon as possible.

"Alright, so I'm going to go with Gran and Gramps back to the Anderson's house, see if we can find any clues inside." Kurt explained as the rest of the boys filled up on Gran's incredible deluxe breakfast spread. Kurt didn't really have much of an appetite.

"Isn't that breaking and entering?" Wes asked uneasily around a mouthful of food.

"Who said anything about breaking?" Gramps asked a little too jovially. Suddenly, he was waving a key around, seemingly having pulled it from nowhere. "I have an extra key that was given to me in case of emergency. I'd say that this is emergency enough." Kurt couldn't help the small sigh that escaped his lips. The words _Blaine _and _emergency _never sounded good in the same sentence.

"Alright, Gramps!" Wes said, clearly in awe of the elderly man's techniques. He even reached out and got a high five from him.

"So what house are Wes and I going to look into?" David asked, trying to move things along.

"Um," Kurt rummaged around until he found the set of directions he and Gran had printed out the night before, "here we go. Here's the address. It's a good two hours away I'm afraid." He added quietly while he scratched the back of his neck nervously. He felt bad-making everyone go so far out of their way. A hand resting on his forearm suddenly brought him out of his sulking.

"Kurt, he's our friend too. It really isn't trouble at all." David assured him.

Wes leaned over into Kurt's line of sight, adding, "Honestly, you really think we'd be anywhere else right now?"

Kurt chuckled and reached up to squeeze David's hand in thanks. "Thank you, really." He whispered, addressing the entire gathering.

"Um, so I guess Nick and Jeff can-" Kurt stopped dead in his tracks, realizing what he had just said. Nick and Jeff had been very silent since the news of Nick's mother's threats. They didn't seem angry at one another, but perhaps nervous. Almost like they didn't know what they were supposed to do next. "Um, well, I mean, I guess-"

"It's alright, Kurt." Jeff interrupted Kurt's ramblings to give him some peace of mind. "We'll be fine to take the last lake house."

Kurt glanced over to Nick and received a small nod in affirmation. He really hoped that the two of them could work things out.

*~Line Break~*

"It's sort of eerie if you ask me. Who would want to take a vacation here?" Wes kicked at some pebbles on the ground while he buried his hands deep in his pockets. They had just parked the car and were slowly making their way around the house.

"That's because you hate nature." David teased.

"What do you mean I _hate _nature? I think you mean that I've _mastered _nature." Wes disagreed smugly.

"…no," David said slowly, as if explaining it to a child. "I meant hate." Before Wes could jump in again, David quickly added, "Come on Wes, you and I both know that the only way to get you outside without complaint is to make a game out of it. Example? Snow ball fights. Water guns.-"

"Exploding touch football!" Wes added excitedly.

"Yeah! Exploding-what?"

Wes' eyes grew wide as he sped up and away from David. "Oh, um, I'll explain later."

They fell silent as they slowly began to peak into windows and check the doors. All of the doors were locked and the windows revealed a space that looked like it hadn't been touched since last summer at the earliest. Double that with the fact that there weren't any other cars here except for theirs and it didn't look likely that they had stumbled upon the Anderson's hiding spot. After their third trip around the house, they had decided to call Kurt and leave the creepy house in the woods.

As they neared the car, David reached out to still Wes. "Wes, look!" he was pointing at the ground by the backside of the car. The dirt had large tire tracks in it from their vehicle, but on the ground that hadn't been driven over, there were faint footprints. "It couldn't have been us; neither of us has walked behind the car."

Wes nodded thoughtfully and kneeled down a little to get a closer look. "Plus, they look a little older than our own." He straightened back up, a skeptical look already tainting his expression. "But it could have been anyone. I don't know, maybe kids coming here to drink or do drugs. You know, empty cabins in the woods seem to draw crowds like that pretty often."

David was listening, but he continued to look at the footprints as he slowly started to follow their fading shapes. "Well, yeah, it _could_ be anyone, meaning it could be Blaine too."

Curiously, Wes followed David as they both kept their eyes on the ground. The tracks led along the side of the house, towards the separate garage that was hidden among the trees. They were passing by the cellar door that sat flat on the ground when something shiny gleamed in the sun and caught David's eye. He scurried over and scooped it up to find it was a strange looking key. It wasn't very big, yet it managed to fit oddly square teeth on both sides of the stem. It was silver and shiny, giving it an air of importance.

"What do you think it goes to?" David asked as they both stared inquisitively down at the object as it shined in the palm of his hand.

Wes just shook his head. "No idea. But, how do we even know that it's important? It could just be something the Anderson's lost years ago. Or maybe it was those kids who come here to do borderline illegal things or whatever."

"Wes, do you really think that a bunch of teenage brats would have a key to anything other than a car or maybe their house key?" To that, Wes had to shake his head _no_. "It _has _to be a message!" He said suddenly with a voice drenched in certainty. "Look how well they cleaned up after themselves!" David swept his arm around to gesture to the entire property. "We had thought that _no one _had been here for a while, but these footprints say otherwise. So _why _would they leave a key out, in plain sight? What if it's Blaine trying to tell us something?"

"But _what_?" Wes puzzled.

"I don't know, but maybe whatever this key opens can help us find Blaine." Wes still looked doubtful, prompting David to plead, "Please Wes; it's all we've got."

Wes stared at the key still cradled in between David's palm and loosely curled fingers. He nodded and started towards the car. "Alright. We should get back to Gran and Gramps; it's going to take us a while. Plus, we're going to need the extra help if we ever want to find what this damn key goes to."

They piled back into the car and began their two hour journey back to home base.

*~Line Break~*

A little over two and a half hours away from Gran and Gramps house in the opposite direction of Wes and David, Nick and Jeff had shared an uncomfortably silent ride. Finally arriving at the vacation house seemed like a small miracle as they both scrambled out of the suffocating car.

"So, uh…what should we be looking for?" Nick asked quietly, keeping a few feet between their bodies as they cautiously advanced towards the house.

Jeff was startled out of his thoughts and jumped a tad before almost shyly looking towards Nick and stuttering out a reply. "Oh, um, I don't know. I guess just like, signs that they've been here. You know, like…unlocked doors or open windows and stuff…"

Nick nodded wordlessly and branched off from Jeff, going to circle around the right side of the house while Jeff took he left. It seemed as though the time apart hadn't put any sort of damper on their ability to communicate without words.

Nick checked the side of the house thoroughly, sweeping the view from roofline to ground and trying to grasp anything out of the ordinary. There was nothing. He double checked and triple checked but still it didn't seem like anyone had been here anytime soon. He leaned his back against the side of the house, just around the corner from the back, where he was sure to run into Jeff.

Great, so now he had no lead on where Blaine was and he didn't even have the courage to face his ex. God, the entire ride over, he wanted to reach out and hold Jeff's hand _so bad, _just like they used to,but he wasn't exactly sure if that would be welcome anymore. Sure, Jeff hadn't been mean or hateful towards him, but he had broken Jeff's heart; he wasn't expecting him to fall right back into his arms. He hoped, but he didn't expect.

Jeff checked his side of the house a few times as well. When he finally determined that the house hadn't been visited in months, he rounded the corner to the back of the house and milled around aimlessly while he waited for Nick.

Jeff didn't know what to say to Nick. He knew what he _wanted _to say. He _wanted _to say that he still loved him and that he had never stopped and he needed Nick like he needed air to breath. He wanted to hold him and breath him in and just _be _with him. But Nick was so tentative around him now that he wasn't sure how to broach the subject. The last thing he needed was to scare him off.

Finally, Nick rounded around to the back of the house and walked over to Jeff, stopping more than a few paces away. "I didn't find anything. I don't think they've been here." He whispered with eyes on the ground between them.

"Yeah, me neither." Jeff confirmed.

They stood their awkwardly before Nick, still in that same whispered volume, broke the silence. "Well, I suppose we should head back now…"

"Nick?" Jeff shyly called as he reached out and gripped Nick's wrist to keep him from turning away.

Nick stilled instantly, his eyes ghosting over the vision of Jeff's grip that he had yet to relinquish. As he began to break through the shock of physical contact after so long-_too _long- his eyes wandered up to lock with Jeff's.

"I'm not mad, or anything, if that's what you think. I mean…" Jeff sighed, running his free hand through his blonde hair nervously. "I get why you did it. You were backed into a corner; you didn't really have another way out. I just…just wish you had _told _me what was happening; what she was doing."

Tears had leaked into Nick's eyes as Jeff spoke. He softly sniffed and nodded his head knowingly; almost like an apology. "I…I was scared." He began quietly. "I just…she told me to leave you or she would send me away where I would never see you again and-and, I didn't know what I was up against! I don't know how many teachers she's bribing but I guess I figured that i-if I broke up with you, for…for _real," _he took a deep, ragged breath at that and plunged forward, "then there would be no _chance _that she could send me away…I-I…" Nick slid his hand back until Jeff's hand was now around his fingers. From there, he gently and carefully intertwined their fingers. His eyes looked up at Jeff with such warmth and love that it brought tears to the blonde's eyes. "I couldn't get myself sent away. I _need _you, Jeff. Even if I-I can't be _with _you, I need to be able to see with my own eyes that you're safe and happy."

Jeff chuckled a little through his tears, relief flooding his system. "Well, I'm not really all that happy without you." His hand came up to cradle Nick's face gently and stroked affectionately at his cheek bones.

Nick giggled lightly and brought his hand up to hold Jeff's in place. He leaned into the familiar touch and let out a little hiccupping laugh when he said, "I love you."

Jeff let out a matching laugh and replied. "I love you, too." He brought their faces together and whispered right over Nick's shivering lips, "Always will."

Their lips touched each other tentatively at first, almost like testing the waters after so long being apart. It only lasted a few seconds though, as their brains finally registered just who exactly it was that they were kissing. It deepened but stayed loving and unhurried.

They didn't have any new information and they had some time to kill. Gran and Gramps place would still be there when they got back. Right now, they were going to breathe the air that they had needed for far too long.

*~Line Break~*

"Kurt, the only thing making us look suspicious is you looking over your shoulder every two seconds." Gran teased as Gramps opened the front door to the Anderson residence.

Kurt shot her a glare as she just giggled some more. "I can't help but feel like this is a violation of privacy or something; even if it isn't illegal." Kurt muttered.

All three of them crept into the house slowly as they surveyed the scene. Most of the furniture was still there, mainly the larger pieces, while the smaller ones were simply gone, leaving nothing but odd voids of dust here and there. It was evident that no one lived here anymore. That thought had Kurt's heart beating faster and adrenaline flooding his veins.

There was a lot of ground to cover on account of how big the house was. However, instead of splitting up, they all decided to travel together, that way each room had three pairs of eyes surveying every single nook and cranny; overlooking nothing. They made their way through the kitchen, living room, the _second _living room and the dining room before venturing upstairs. There, they walked through a music room that boasted a beautiful baby grand piano that had Kurt almost weeping for he knew precisely who played that piano. Gran rested a hand on his shoulder and guided him out of the room and down the hall where they peaked into the bathroom and finally entered Blaine's room.

Instantly, Kurt had tears in his eyes. He was tired of crying, but it was as if he had lost total control over his tear ducts. Even the slightest reminder of his missing fiancé set him worrying and melancholy. Now, here in this room that still smelt of Blaine, Kurt felt the tears streaming effortlessly down his face. Noiselessly, he entered the room and made his way towards the bed. It seemed as though none of his furniture had been packed away, although his closet looked rather scarce. Kurt looked around the room; taking it in. Reaching the bed, Kurt sat down gingerly on the edge. He laid down almost cautiously. His head hit the pillow and his tears increased. He couldn't help it; the smell of Blaine had invaded his senses and he just couldn't take it anymore. "Blaine," he whimpered, hoping beyond hope that Blaine could hear him, "Please be okay. Please."

Kurt had completely forgotten that Gran was even there when she sat down next to Kurt and started rubbing a soothing hand up and down his back.

"We're going to find him, Kurt, we are." She assured him. And, damn, she sounded so confident, like it wasn't even a possibility that they wouldn't.

"I just _miss _him, Gran." Kurt was able to wheeze out. He gripped Blaine's pillow to his chest and held on for dear life, almost afraid that he would rip holes into it.

Gran leaned down and began whipping the tears off of his flushed face. "Which is why we need to keep looking." It seemed like even the most obvious things had an air of wisdom when coming from Gran's mouth.

Kurt nodded and heaved himself up, still gripping Blaine's pillow to his chest. He decided that he could use it a lot more than this empty house. Scanning the room one more time, Kurt's eyes fell on Blaine's guitar in the far corner. Kurt immediately got up and found the case, stowed away in the closet, and packed the guitar up to take with them; Blaine was going to want this, and Kurt was never going to allow Blaine anywhere _near _his parents or this house ever again.

Silently, Gran shot Kurt a look that asked, _Are you ready? _Kurt nodded with determination before turning and following Gran out of the room.

They found Gramps rooting around in Mr. Anderson's study. It was a beautiful room really, very classic. It had the dark wood floors that were largely covered by ornate oriental rugs. A massive wooden desk with gaudy scrolling carved into it stood facing the door in the middle of the room. Behind the desk were humongous dark stained shelves that carried thick volumes of undoubtedly boring books. There was even a brick fireplace on the right side of the room, although it looked like it was just used to fuel the prestigious feel in the room instead of housing roaring fires. There were no pictures in the office. None of the family or pets or friends; no pictures at all. It was all business related and extremely dry in Kurt's opinion, but perhaps he was biased.

"Looks like he _was_ looking at boarding schools alright." Gran observed, picking up a stack of brochures left out on the desk.

"Boarding schools in where?" Gramps questioned as he surveyed the bookshelves carefully.

Gran leafed through them quickly but unsurprisingly confirmed their suspicion. "They're all in Europe. Priding themselves on security and privacy." Gran ended with a scoff and rolled her eyes. "What are you looking for, Kurt?"

Kurt had pulled the computer out of sleep mode and thanked the Lord that it had already been logged on; eliminating his need for a password. "I'm going to check their history. Maybe they did some searches for airline tickets.

They didn't find any searches for airplane tickets, but Kurt did find something else of interest. "Gran, look!" he crowed, pointing at the screen before their eyes. "The Anderson's searched about a dozen hotels. There isn't any record of them actually reserving a room, but we know where to look next!" His chipper tone felt weird on his own ears but he seriously doubted that the guys had found them considering the fact that there were no phone calls from either of them yet. This meant that they knew where to look next. They had narrowed the world down to a dozen hotels; it was better than nothing. Kurt quickly wrote down the names of all the hotels in the Anderson's search history before shutting the laptop, conducting one last examination of the room and ultimately following the grandparents' home.

*~Line Break~*

Once again, Gran had out done herself. After a long day out searching, all of the boys, besides Kurt, were starving. Kurt still hadn't found his appetite and he didn't really care that it had been nearly two days since he had eaten now. He sincerely doubted that anything he ate would stay down anyways.

Nick and Jeff had bounded into the house, joined at the hip with their arms thrown around one another. A delighted yelp had slipped out of Wes while David had tackled them into an impressive bear hug. Kurt had noticed that they immediately dropped one another's hand when they saw Kurt eyeing them, but he smiled warmly at them and congratulated them good naturedly with a, "it's about time!" Sure, he missed Blaine, that was no secret, but he didn't want Jeff and Nick to suffer because of this. They deserved to be happy and they finally, _finally _were.

"So what's the plan for tomorrow?" Nick asked. He was eating with one hand; still refusing to let Jeff go.

"Well, we found about a dozen hotels that the Anderson's searched, so we figured it would be best to split up again and check out the hotels. It's the only other places we can think to look." Kurt added quietly.

"Oh, wait!" David said suddenly, wiping his mouth with his napkin and swallowing his mouthful of lasagna as he dug the key out of his jean's pocket. "Wes and I found this key by the side of the house." He held it out for everyone to see. "We don't know what it goes to but it was beside some footprints that Wes and I didn't leave. The whole place was spotless, except for this key."

Kurt's brow was furrowed as he scrutinized the key curiously. "So…what? You think that Blaine left it as a clue?" He didn't sound patronizing but rather hopeful, like he liked the idea of a message from the curly headed Warbler.

"Maybe." Wes shrugged. He took the key from David's outstretched hand and began to pass it around the table. "Perhaps if we can figure out what it opens it'll tell us where they are." He shrugged almost shyly at that; afraid that it was too out there. Wes was all for _out there _scenarios, but not when his friend was missing. Right now, he really wanted either hardcore clues or results. He was praying that this chance would provide some of those results.

"This is a safe key." Gramps suddenly spoke. The key had made its way around the table and was now cradled in his thick, calloused hand.

"A safe?" Jeff asked, quirking an eyebrow interestedly.

Gramps nodded his head. "Neil has a safe in his study."

It was silent for a few moments as everyone formed their own opinions as to what a safe key had been doing lying on the ground at a lake house and what that safe could possibly be hiding.

"Well what are we waiting for?" Kurt piped up, rising to his feet. "Let's go see what's inside!"

"Kurt," Gran said sympathetically as the willowy man swayed on his feet. She lightly gripped his arm and held him in place. "It's too late and you need rest."

Kurt huffed at this and tried to pull away half-heartedly. "But Gran, we already have about a dozen hotels to check tomorrow! He don't have the time to go _back _to the Anderson's and then make it out to all of the hotels. We may not have enough time until they leave the country!" Panic was rising in his throat and fraying his already abused nerves.

Gran continued calmly. "Alright, then how about tomorrow, Gramps and I will go back to the house and check the safe while the five of you start on the hotels."

Kurt seemed to mull this idea over and over in his head before relenting with a tired nod of the head. He was just too exhausted to fight her on this and it really wasn't a half bad plan.

"Just keep me posted on what you find." He asked to which he received an affirmative nod.

Dinner was cleared away and all were wished a goodnight, even Kurt.

But Kurt knew that he wouldn't have a good night until Blaine was back in his arms.

**A/N: What's in the safe? Where's Blaine? What's the meaning of life? Any ideas? Let me know! PM me or leave a review (pretty please?) Love you guys!**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Oh wow guys, I'm so sorry it took me so freaking long to post this chapter! I was having some pretty nasty writers block and I've been travelling a lot recently, so that cut into my time some. I want to thank all of you who are still reading and reviewing and favoriting and following and just being awesome in general! I hope you like this chapter! Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Glee**

**Chapter 8**

Upon Kurt's insistence, the day started out early for all involved in the search. The guys had just decided to set up camp in the living room instead of making the drive back to school. Gran made yet _another _delicious breakfast and Kurt suspected that she was just excited to have a large group of boys to cook for; she had always struck him as the type of grandmother that liked to prepare Thanksgiving dinner and the Christmas spread each and every year.

Last night had been no different than the night before that for Kurt. Sleep hadn't found him and when it did, it was only a few minutes before the nightmares would rock him awake again. The vision of finding Blaine beaten and battered like he had come to Gran and Gramps all those years ago was just too much and too real for Kurt to handle. However, Kurt sincerely doubted that Blaine's father would leave such noticeable evidence behind. At least, he _hoped_ he wouldn't.

Kurt didn't even bother fixing his hair fully. In a move that made him think way too much of Blaine, he reached for a small bottle of gel that he had thrown into his bag. He worked a little bit into his hair and then just tousled it into somewhat of a bedhead look. He didn't want anyone to worry about him; their attention should be focused on finding Blaine, so he carefully painted on his concealer under his eyes and dusted it with some face powder to make the blend look flawless-like he had actually managed to grab a good night's sleep when in reality, he hadn't slept for the past two nights. In between the worrying and his incessant need to plan the most efficient and swiftest rescue possible, _I'll sleep when Blaine's next to me, _kept replaying over and over in Kurt's head.

He shoved a little food down before eagerly beginning to clean the kitchen and dining room table up; anything to speed up the process.

"Alright," he began, sitting himself back down at the table where everyone else was still seated. "So, I went through the list of hotels that we got off of Mr. Anderson's computer yesterday and got directions for all of them. Then I went ahead and ordered them from most likely to least likely. The most likely ones are the ones that are near airports. The rest are just sort of miscellaneous. Plus, they were towards the beginning of the history, meaning that they most likely didn't make the cut, so they moved on."

"Well then why don't we just start with the last one they searched and work our way backwards?" Nick asked. His arm was slung around Jeff's waist, keeping him close. It was almost as if they were physically attached at the hip now, like someone had welded them together.

Kurt removed his eyes from their embrace and placed his gaze back up to Nick's face. "Because some of the hotels were searched multiple times, almost like they were comparing prices or locations or something."

"Makes for a very muddled list." Jeff supplied as he took a sip of his coffee.

Kurt nodded in agreement. "So…shall we get started?" he asked hopefully. He was trying to keep the fear at bay, he really was, but the knowledge that he might lose Blaine if he didn't find him-and _fast_- scared the hell out of him. He wanted his sweetheart back, plain and simple.

"Absolutely, doll." Gran soothed, as she ran a calming hand gently down Kurt's tense back. She could see right through him, just like she always did. "Gramps and I will get a move on over to Neil's house and check out that safe."

Kurt nodded appreciatively and caught her other hand up in a firm clasp. "Thank you." He whispered. It was getting harder and harder to keep his emotions in check as the lack of sleep piled up and the hourglass in his mind kept spilling more and more sand lower and lower. With one final squeeze of the hand, the two parties departed from one another.

*~Line Break~*

The first hotel was a bust. The second hotel was a bust. The third hotel was a bust. Kurt was going _insane. _He was completely consumed by that nagging thought of _Nothing is working _and it was beginning to make him sick to his stomach.

They were on their way to the fourth hotel. Kurt was sitting in the far right back seat, with Jeff next to him, in the middle seat, and Nick on his other side. Wes was driving and David was being his navigator in the passenger seat. Kurt, as hard as he tried, just couldn't stop shaking. He watched the scenery fly past in a blur that somehow still seemed too slow.

He felt a hand come to rest on his own trembling hands that were desperately clinging to one another. His blue eyes flicked up to find Jeff looking at him with understanding and concern, Nick peaking over his shoulder with a matching expression.

The entire car was silent. No one had bothered to turn on the radio or mention the lack of music. It was just the rhythmic turning of the tires on the concrete beneath them and the sound of the heater blowing gently.

"When uh-" Kurt cleared his throat, "when Blaine gave me my engagement ring, he said…he said, that it was for when we couldn't be together…" He sniffed as those pesky tears began to build up in his eyes again. His long, slender fingers of one hand began to twirl the ring on his other hand, around and around, trying to squeeze the promise that was laced in the very molecules of the white gold into existence; so he could feel it and believe and not feel so _alone. _

Kurt became silent again, sniffing furiously as he refused to let his tears fall. Even though he had spoken in a whisper, all the boys had heard him and he was finding it hard to look into anyone's eyes. Therefore, his eyes remained glued to the bundle of fingers in his lap.

Gently, an arm came to rest across his shoulders, contracting softly to bring Kurt in closer. Jeff smiled sadly down at him. It hurt, seeing his friend so obviously in pain and knowing that he wasn't the person that could make it all better. In fact, he could do only so little. Didn't keep Jeff from trying though.

"We _are _going to find him, Kurt." He assured with confidence.

Kurt nodded weakly. It was getting harder and harder to believe as each hotel passed by without even a blip on the radar. He _still _had no idea where Blaine was or where he was headed exactly, besides the vague destination of Europe. _That really narrows it down, _Kurt thought bitterly. It had been _days _since he had last seen or heard from Blaine so, understandably, it was pretty difficult to keep his hopes up.

Wes unexpectedly cleared his throat. "The very first time I met Blaine, it was a little over a year ago now, and he had just transferred." It was sort of odd to hear Wes being so serious, so it was almost a relief when he continued with, "He auditioned for the Warblers, I swooned a little over his voice, I questioned my sexuality and we've been friends ever since."

Kurt let out a hiccupping laugh and wiped a shaky finger underneath his eyes in case any tears had snuck out without his knowledge.

David followed next. "The first time I met Blaine, Wes and I were in an epic battle of capture the flag."

"Epic doesn't even _begin _to describe that battle!" Wes interjected, almost sounding offended that David would demote it so harshly.

"Wes and I were in this mind-blowing, earth shatteringly impressive war of capture the flag." David amended. "I was sick the day that Blaine auditioned, so I'd only heard about Blaine and his, oh what did you call it Wes? His…dreamboat voice was it?"

"I believe I said, 'sexy as _hell _dreamboat voice', David." Wes proudly corrected.

"Ah, yes, that was it," David said, stroking his shaven chin like he had a beard instead. "Well, anyways, Wesley decided to _CHEAT-"_

"That was not cheating and you know it!" Wes defensively argued. "We never said _anything _about not putting your flag onto something that moved."

"Because I thought it was universally understood!" David looked at his friend as though it was obvious. Shrugging his shoulders like, w_ell you should have known!_

"The point, guys?" Nick finally interrupted. He was grinning though, as was Jeff and even Kurt, who was biting back his giggles at their antics.

"Right, as I was _saying," _David stressed, shooting Wes a glare, "Wes decided to recruit Blaine to freaking _wear _the flag and run around with it, making it nearly impossible to find." David's facial expression suddenly shifted into one of triumph as he recalled the memory vividly in his head. "Eventually, I spotted some new kid with ridiculously gelled hair," he threw a wink over his shoulder at Kurt and was rewarded when he blushed and nodded his agreement, "running across campus with a flag on his back and Wes not far behind. So I did what any rational person would do." Insert Wes' scoff here a beat before David finished with, "I tackled his ass into the ground."

There was a moment of silence before Kurt lost it. His laugh filled the car and was soon followed by the other guys in the car.

Speaking over the laughter, David said, "And, true to form, Blaine smiled up at me, as I'm _lying on top of him, _extends his hand and says, 'Pleased to meet you. I'm Blaine Anderson and I assume you're David; Wes has told me about you.'"

The laughter picked up again at that. "Did he really?" Kurt managed to ask. He received a happy nod of the head from David. "Of course he did." Kurt said more to himself than anyone else. He smiled happily and shook his head, still with the occasional giggle slipping out.

Keeping story time going, Nick piped up next; anything to keep Kurt from looking so blue. "Jeff and I actually met Blaine at the same time. We saw him audition, and he was awesome. So awesome, that right after rehearsal, all of the Warblers practically surrounded him, so Jeff and I just decided to leave and maybe try to congratulate him later. We went to grab some dinner in the cafeteria when in walks Blaine, having been able to shake off all of the fangirls somehow and looking a little lost." He smiled lightly, remembering the childish look of anxiety on Blaine's face only a year ago, as he searched for a place to sit. "Jeff and I invited him to sit with us and…" He broke off and giggled a little, looking up at Jeff.

Jeff took his cue and continued with, "Well, I think we were the first gay couple Blaine had actually seen live and in person. He kept on glancing at my arm around Nick's waist and then glancing around the room to make sure no one was glaring daggers at us or something."

"It was sort of endearing, really." Nick added, "The way he was blushing and staring." He clarified.

"And then we walked him back to his dorm, which was in the same hall as ours, and I gave Nick a quick kiss goodnight and I think Blaine just about fainted." Jeff chuckled, watching as Kurt smiled and smirked a little.

Nick and Jeff's faces slowly melted out of their looks of amusement and took on a wistful hint. The car remained quiet, waiting for them to finish.

"He really quietly asked if we were afraid of what people would do to us for being gay, and we just told him that at Dalton, no one cared." Nick's smile widened. "He looked pretty confused about that, but after being at Dalton for a few weeks, he really opened up."

"Like that first Warblers' movie night we had with Blaine?" Wes asked excitedly.

Kurt quirked a brow, not familiar with the story.

Turning towards Kurt, Nick filled him in. "The first movie night we had with the Warblers after Blaine joined, we were watching _Transformers _and everyone was going on and on about Megan Fox. He hadn't really come out yet but everyone sort of had their suspicions. Well, anyways, some guy asked Blaine who's hotter, Megan Fox or Anne Hathaway? And he says that he's more of a Ryan Gosling sort of guy. And then he sort of braced for impact or something."

Jeff laughed a small laugh and took over the remainder of the story. "Then, the guy just says, 'Well, it looks like you and Nick will get along great'." Jeff pretended to pout at Nick's attraction to the sculpted actor until Nick giggled and squeezed Jeff tightly, placing a kiss on the tip of his nose.

Kurt smiled at that. It was almost hard to imagine Blaine as anything other than the confident, proud man that Kurt knew and loved. He was just so glad that Blaine had made these friends that loved him no matter what. He was also very grateful that they were now his friends as well, because without them, he would be even more of a mess than he already was in light of recent events.

"Soooo…" Wes drawled out playfully from the driver's seat, "What about you, Kurt? How did you first meet Blaine?"

Kurt rolled his eyes playfully, feeling better and lighter than he had in days. "You know how Blaine and I met."

"And we also know that you love to talk about anything Blaine related," David replied. "so spill."

Kurt huffed in feigned irritation. "Fine, fine." He acquiesced. "I was going to school at McKinley and the New Directions-"

"That was their show choir, right?" Wes asked, as if he didn't already know.

"Yes, Wes," Kurt smirked, replying like Wes was a little kid that needed things explained very slowly for it to actually sink in. "Anyways, the New Directions sent me to spy on The Warblers-our competition."

A low chorus of _Ooooooo _drifted from all four boys as they listened with rapt attention. For a moment, Kurt felt like he was telling a fairytale to small children as their eyes grew wider and wider in wonder.

"So, I'm dreadfully lost, everyone's running somewhere and I'm just too confused for my own good, so I reach out and catch the arm of the first guy I see. And sure enough, it was Blaine."

"Was he dreamy?" Wes asked teasingly.

"The dreamiest," Kurt giggled, beginning to blush even though all of the guys in the car already knew he thought this. A sigh slipped through his lips as his smile flattened into a look of content and almost serenity. "He was sort of…perfection." He could feel his blush getting redder and redder with each moment, but he chose to ignore it. "He was kind and had the most open smile I'd ever seen before. And then he took my hand and-" Kurt let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh, "Well, first off I mean, a guy touching me? _Voluntarily? _Color me shocked. And then there were…" he made a gesture somewhat reminiscent of jazz hands and fluttered them around, trying to find the right word, "_sparks, _or something." He sighed, remembering the feeling like it had happened yesterday. "I knew right then that I was going to fall for him if I wasn't careful." He smiled sadly as his fingers began twisting the ring once again.

The car grew quiet once again as they all let the words drift away and fizzle out, hanging in the air for all to hear.

"Nick, do you still have the video?" David asked suddenly.

"Video?" Kurt questioned, his gaze flicking around to all of the members of the car, "What video?"

"Yeah, I think I do…" Nick answered David, pulling out his phone and scrolling through the different screens in search of it.

"What are you guys talking about?" Kurt asked again, the curiosity positively eating away at him.

"Um, well…" Wes trailed off, smiling at David who just smiled goofily back. "You remember how you, Blaine, David and I all got coffee together after the performance?"

Kurt nodded his head with raised eyebrows that clearly said, _Seriously? Did you think I would forget?_

Wes nodded in return, acknowledging Kurt's answer. "Well, since Blaine was making heart eyes at you the entire time-"

"He was _not!_" Kurt interrupted, looking completely shocked by this revelation.

"Oh, dear God," David muttered under his breath while Wes turned around in his seat, completely forgetting the road to stare at Kurt with wide eyes.

"Oh, yes he _was! _You probably didn't notice just like Blaine didn't notice you practically salivating over him." Wes declared.

Kurt's cheeks took on an instant hue of pink as he ducked his head, not even trying to deny it.

"_Anyways,_" Wes began again smugly, finally turned back around to face the road much to everyone's relief, "We'd never seen anything like it. I mean, Blaine's had some of the guys at Dalton ask him out and he always turned them down." Wes' nearly black eyes glanced at Kurt in the rearview mirror for a second. "We'd never seen him crush on someone before and not only was it sort of funny, but…"

David cut it. "It was kind of adorable. And we thought that maybe…maybe it was something special."

Kurt's eyes were glued to the two boys in the front as they told this story from an angle Kurt had never heard before.

Wes nodded his agreement to David's statement and continued. "So, after Blaine asked us to give you two some privacy, David and I went over to Nick's dorm, where we walked in on Nick and Jeff eating each other's faces-"

"-And that's why they invented _knocking-_" Jeff stressed.

"-So after they detached their mouths from one another, I told Nick to get out his phone and get the video camera ready."

Nick picked up the story then. "Wes tells me that Blaine is completely head over heels for the McKinley spy that he sang Teenage Dream to and that they were having coffee and he wanted me to video tape Blaine's gushing." Nick smiled as Kurt's face took on an expression of disbelief, like he didn't really think that they had a video of Blaine right after their first meeting. I mean, Kurt knew what _he _had done right after meeting Blaine; he may or may not have called Rachel and Mercedes to an emergency sleep over and literally squealed for a good half hour. But getting to see _Blaine's _side? Very few people got to see the otehr side of the 'How I met your mother' (insert correct gender here) for themselves.

"Sure enough," Nick said, handing his phone over to Kurt with a paused video ready and waiting to be watched. "immediately after you left, he came and found us all to talk about you."

Kurt hit play.

The video started a little shakily, probably from Nick trying to find a discrete way to video tape this without giving himself away to Blaine, who had just burst through the door. Wes and David were visible on the other bed across the room as they grinned knowingly at Blaine who was doing his absolute best to cover up his dopey grin.

"Have fun?" David asked with obviously fake innocence.

Blaine didn't seem to notice though as his smile just slipped out to become larger. "Yup." He failed to say as casually as he was trying for.

"Kurt seems nice…" Wes tried. At the sound of Kurt's name, Blaine instantly flushed a deep tomato red and giggled. Freaking _giggled!_

"Um, yeah he is," he confirmed, sounding breathless as he nervously twiddled his thumbs and rocked back and forth on his heels.

"He's really good looking too…" Nick piped up from somewhere behind the camera.

At that, Blaine was reduced to a stuttering mess. "U-um, I-I mean, yeah, y-yeah, h-he is…" He trailed off awkwardly.

"Okay, Blaine," David finally spoke up, "we know that you're smitten, so give it up already." He leveled the blushing Blaine a serious look. "Now," he said, evidently pleased when Blaine didn't put up a fight, "do you want to tell Davey about Kurt?"

Finally giving in, Blaine literally flopped down onto the floor, lying sprawled out and covering his face with his hands as a huge, dreamy sigh rushed out of his lungs. "He's _perfect! _Oh my God!"

The boys in the room could be heard snickering as they waited for Blaine to continue. Kurt heard Jeff whisper to Nick, "Oh, this is precious! _Look at him!_"

"He's _beautiful, _like the most beautiful person I've ever seen! I mean, did you _see _his legs?!" The boys nodded amusedly, and Blaine let out a groan at the very thought of Kurt's legs. "And he's so sweet," he continued without prompting, "and kind, and he had manners, and oh _wow, _his eyes are just…" he drifted off, his own hazel eyes becoming lost in memories. "I…I got his number…" he added, sounding like the very definition of a lovesick puppy.

"Are you going to ask him out?" Wes asked hopefully.

For the first time in the entire video, Blaine's face fell. "Um…no…"

"Why not?" Wes asked, sounding completely scandalized.

Blaine lifted his head off of the ground to give him an incredulous look. "Like I stand a chance! He's so out of my league, it's not even funny!"

"Hey, hegave you his number, remember?" Wes defended.

"Yeah, but I had to ask for it-"

"-Well he seemed pretty shy." Wes reasoned, thinking back over his brief encounter with the object of Blaine's affection.

Blaine did nod at that slowly, seeming to mull it over in his head. "I think he's a little…wary around new people, but he's confident; it just radiates off of him." The contemplative look on his face broke into one of sadness again though, "For all I know, he gave me a fake phone number because he didn't want to be rude and just flat out say no."

"Text him." Wes not so much as encouraged as commanded.

Blaine let out another sigh and worked his phone out of his pants pocket and typed out a quick message to Kurt.

"And from one gay man to another, Blaine," Jeff spoke up, "you're a catch. Kurt would be crazy not to see it." Nick hummed his agreement.

Blaine just shrugged, very clearly not believing them. Just as he was about to say something, his phone, still cradled in his hand, vibrated with a message. He froze, as did everyone else in the room.

He carefully fiddled with his phone, opening the message. His face had a look of absolute shock and disbelief as he read the message, most likely a couple times over. Slowly, he sat up, eyes wide as they remained locked on the screen. "'Hey, Blaine!'" He read aloud. A smile stretched across his face as he exclaimed, "And then there's a smiley face! A _smiley face!_"

The guys started to laugh again, only stopping when Blaine let out yet another dreamy sigh and whispered, "He texted back…"

The video ended shortly after that.

Kurt handed the cell phone back to Nick as he felt a grin slowly blooming across his face.

"We were actually going to wait until your wedding reception to show you this video, but I think you needed to see that now." Nick explained as he put his phone away.

"Can we still watch it at my wedding?" Kurt giggled, "I want to see Blaine's face when everyone sees it."

Nick just giggled in return and reached across Jeff to hold one of Kurt's hands.

It wasn't until they pulled up at the fourth hotel that Kurt finally noticed that he hadn't been sad during the latter half of the car ride. He only realized his lighthearted mood when it began to evaporate again.

The fourth hotel was a bust. The fifth hotel was a bust. The sixth hotel was a bust. Kurt was going _insane…_

*~Line Break~*

*~Meanwhile~*

After grabbing their coats and scarves, Gran and Gramps made their way to the old Anderson house, silently.

They opened the front door easily with their spare key and let themselves in.

"It's so strange to see this place empty." Gramps said as they made their way back to the office. He could still see a little Blaine stumbling after a pre-teen Cooper as they raced around the house, much to their parents' dismay. He could still hear the faint echoes of the piano as Blaine learned voraciously how to tickle the ivory into the most beautiful of melodies.

Gran nodded and silently took Gramps' hand into her much smaller one. She rubbed a soothing thumb over his knuckles and took a calming breath.

They finally reached the office and immediately gravitated towards the safe that was located directly behind the desk. Gramps pulled the key out of his pocket and looked hopefully at it, praying that this was the correct safe. The key slid in effortlessly and twisted smoothly, unlocking the safe.

Gramps found a few documents inside, including a plane ticket to Europe, and a receipt for a cheap motel that hadn't been on the list. _They sent Kurt on a wild goose chase, _Gran realized. Of course, she should have seen it coming. Neil was an extremely smart man, of course he would think to set up a decoy list to send anyone looking in the wrong direction.

"Lucy," Gramps said suddenly as he observed the plane ticket, his voice deathly quiet.

"What is it, honey?" Gran asked softly. The instantly drained, pale pallor of Gramps skin sent a shiver down Gran's spin.

"Their flight left an hour ago."

*~Line Break~*

The ninth hotel was a bust. The tenth hotel was a bust. And they only had two more to check.

Kurt was right back to square one. No matter how many times he replayed the video of Blaine over in his head, the despair just wouldn't lift. He was shaking and agitated and so freaking scared that it physically hurt.

They were on their way to the eleventh hotel when his phone rang, an annoyingly happy tone that clashed with his mood strikingly. He glanced down to find Gran's name flashing across the screen.

He hurriedly picked up the phone, forgetting pleasantries. "What did you find? Was it the safe? Was there anything in-"

"Kurt, doll, calm down." Gran said soothingly. Her voice was smooth and firm but Kurt could hear the note of sadness buried far underneath.

"Gran," he whispered, feeling like the air had been punched out of him, "Gran, what happened?"

"Kurt," she nearly whined, "He's…he's gone."

It was completely silent on both sides of the line. Gran sat next to Gramps in their quiet car and all eyes were on Kurt as his face took on an ashen color that was strikingly pale even for the porcelain skinned boy.

"W-what do you m-mean he's _gone?" _Kurt managed to choke out. Wes abruptly pulled the car over so he could turn his full attention on the frightened countertenor. Nick's grip tightened on Jeff's arm as tears sprung to his eyes.

Gran responded, sounding incredibly tired. For the first time since Kurt had met her, she actually sounded her age. "The key opened the safe and we found an airplane ticket and motel receipts." Even her sigh sounded sad. "Their flight left a little over an hour ago, doll."

Tears instantly began pooling in Kurt's eyes as his mind struggled to process what he was hearing. "You mean…y-you mean I'm too late?" His choked whisper sounded like that of a small child asking if their dog was sleeping even when they know it's not.

"Kurt," Gran stated suddenly very firm. "This is _not _your fault, do you hear me? Neil's history of hotel searches was a fake. He set it up to trick anyone who went looking. It _wasn't _your fault."

Kurt sniffed strongly but didn't reply. He didn't think he was physically capable at the moment.

"Just…come back to our place and we'll figure out what our next step is, okay?"

It took a while but Kurt was finally able to squeeze out a very small 'okay' before hanging up.

"Let's go back to Gran and Gramps." Kurt whispered to the car full of boys who were all watching him intently.

They had all gathered through the one side of the conversation they had heard and the expression on Kurt's face what had happened. No words were said, Wes just turned the car back on and steered them back the way they had come.

All the hotels had been a bust. And Kurt was insane.

*~Line Break~*

They ended up pulling into the driveway right after Gran and Gramps. They all exited their vehicles silently, shooting concerned glances at one another and then back at Kurt every few seconds.

Kurt didn't feel like speaking ever again. He felt as though his heart had slowed to a stop and now all he felt was a dead weight where his heart used to beat healthily. He felt cold, as if the only thing anchoring him to the ground was now gone and he was floating, unfeelingly, through a smog. Yet, at the same time, he felt the tears shoved far away, undoubtedly ready to poor out of him the minute he was locked safely away from everyone else.

Ready to get it over with already, Kurt walked straight to the front door, not even bothering to greet Gran or Gramps; just walking past them as if he hadn't even seen them in the first place. He wrenched the door open and went straight for the kitchen, prepared to just throw himself up the nearest flight of stairs as he felt the tears beginning to work their way to the surface and pollute his eyes. As soon as he set foot into the door frame of the kitchen though, he stopped cold in his tracks, for there, sitting on one of the high bar stools, was Blaine.

"Blaine?" Kurt dared to whisper, not quite willing to believe his eyes quite yet.

Blaine stood gingerly from the stool, as if he was in some sort of mild pain but seemed to forget it the next moment as he began taking hurried steps toward Kurt, crying his name.

The rest of the people entered the kitchen just in time to see Kurt throw himself at Blaine, arms looping around his beloved and crushing them together while his legs seemed to give out, relinquishing his full weight unto Blaine, to which the slightly shorter man let out a small grunt of pain.

Instantly, Kurt was taking a step back, hands still on Blaine's shoulders, rambling. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry! Are you hurt, baby? Are you okay?" His fingers flitted here and there, inspecting Blaine's body for injuries as tears began to slip down his cheeks.

"Hey, hey, baby, I'm okay, I'm fine," Blaine soothed as his own hands ran through Kurt's hair again and again, trying to memorize the silky texture.

Kurt largely ignored that in favor of frantically clawing at Blaine's shirt to inspect his chest and abs. Blossoming large and dark on Blaine's upper stomach was a fist sized bruise. Smaller bruises peppered the skin under his shirt as well.

Kurt gasped and gently ran his fingers over them. "_Blaine," _he whined, "Oh, baby,"

Blaine wrapped his arms back around his trembling fiancé and pulled him in close again, breathing in his scent. "Shh, shh, it's okay, Kurt. You need to breathe, baby, come on. It's okay, I'm here and I'm not going anywhere." He murmured gently into his hair.

"I-I…I thought I'd _lost you!" _Kurt choked out, fisting his fiancé's shirt in hands. He buried his face into Blaine's neck and allowed himself to feel the steady _thump thump _of Blaine's pulse. "I-I…I love you s-so much, Blaine. So much."

"I l-love you too, Kurt." Blaine was able to whisper through his own tears. He brought his face down to find Kurt's. Those beautiful blue eyes that he damn near worshipped were wrecked with tears and red and puffy and more stunning than anything Blaine had ever seen in his entire life. He leaned down and pressed his lips against Kurt's in the sweetest kiss he could possible kinder.

"How did you get here?" Kurt asked in a broken whimper, eyes shut as he leaned his forehead against Blaine's. "We thought you'd be on that plane by now."

"I ran." Blaine answered in an equally wobbly voice. "I _ran. _I saw an opening and I _took _it because-" he cut off abruptly to tug Kurt in closer and to pull in a shuddering breath of air, "because I _love _you and I can't be without you."

Kurt melted into Blaine, trying his absolute hardest to seep into Blaine's pores and become one with him. He couldn't help the mutterings of 'I love you' that tumbled from his lips in a beautifully honest mantra.

When their words finally quieted to soft sounds of sympathy and coos of adoration, the rest of their family and friends fully entered the room and approached the swaying duo. They each went over to Blaine and gave him a hug, even though it was a little awkward considering the way Kurt absolutely refused to let go of Blaine and Blaine refused to let Kurt stray even an inch. Not that anyone blamed them.

When everyone had retreated to different corners of the house to let the lovers have some privacy, Blaine finally pulled back just enough to look into Kurt's eyes. The concealer that Kurt had sponged on in the morning had been washed away by the tears to reveal large, dark half-moons beneath weary eyes.

"Kurt," Blaine whispered, gently stroking Kurt's cheekbones with his calloused thumbs.

Kurt just sniffed lazily, body limp and completely spent against Blaine's. "I couldn't sleep." He said simply.

Blaine's eyes were large and pained. "When was the last time you ate a real meal?" The guilty look on Kurt's face told him all he needed to know. He loved and hated this about Kurt. He loved how deeply Kurt felt. When he loved someone, he would go to the ends of the Earth for them; he suddenly became second in importance when someone else needed him. But he hated seeing Kurt destroy his body like this. It hurt Blaine to see him in so much misery.

"Let's get some sleep, love." He said quietly, pulling away to lead Kurt up the stairs.

There was so much to consider; so many questions left unanswered. But, for tonight, they were going to heal and love and just _be. _Because the aftermath had just begun and who knew how bad it would be when they opened their eyes.

**A/N: Yay for happy endings! But the next chapter is going to have a lot of answers as to what's going to happen next. Some is good, some…well, not so much. Please review or send me a PM; you know I love hearing from all of you! Love you!**


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